


聞けよ [Ask]

by AshenBee



Series: Love does not come swiftly [2]
Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Friends to Lovers, Furudate really said Hanamaki most relatable Haikyuu character, Hanamaki and Matsukawa are two halves of a whole idiot, M/M, Post-Time Skip, Slow Burn, no beta we die like Matsukawa's sanity, quarter life crisis, this is practically a Hanamaki character study
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-03
Updated: 2021-02-03
Packaged: 2021-03-14 18:21:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 29,575
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29175594
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AshenBee/pseuds/AshenBee
Summary: "Did something happen?""What d’you mean?""I mean was there a reason why you woke up and suddenly decided to walk out on your job today?""Nah, not really. I just…realised I was wasting my time. And decided I was done."After quitting his third job that year, Takahiro turns up unannounced at Matsukawa’s. There’s nothing new about the situation, really; Takahiro is no stranger to unemployment, and Matsukawa is no stranger to Takahiro.So even though his life plan is suddenly looking a lot more like a collection of spare parts than an actual working machine, Takahiro isn’t too stressed.Because even when nothing else is going how he’d planned and he can’t trust life, at least he knows he can trust Matsukawa.
Relationships: Hanamaki Takahiro/Matsukawa Issei
Series: Love does not come swiftly [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2141847
Comments: 26
Kudos: 66





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This story is for everyone that doesn’t know what they’re doing or where they’re going in life. You’ll get there one day, so don’t give up!
> 
> This piece is also dedicated to [Mieillee](https://twitter.com/mieillee), whose [gorgeous art](https://twitter.com/mieillee/status/1298392127060279297?s=20) was a huge inspiration for this story and is what violently ejected Matsuhana from the bowels of my Iwaoi ship out into the sea on their own little chopping board raft in the first place.
> 
> This is something I’ve been working on for a long time now, so I’m incredibly excited to finally be able to share it.  
> I’m not in the habit of making playlists, but if you did want to experience my state of mind while you read, just play TS’s The 1 (and Peace and Hoax and Illicit affairs and My tears ricochet…) on loop, with ~~some Oihina~~ August for a bit of a break. Then switch to staring and crying at Mieillee’s art for a few minutes or hours before returning to the fic. Rinse and repeat.  
> (I kid, I do not recommend that. My state of mind was questionable at the best of times while writing this.)
> 
> Finally (last thing and then I promise I’ll shut up): the fics in this series are set in the same timeline, but you don’t need to read them both as they are entirely standalone. That said, there is some minor referential crossover *cough*Iwaizumi's girlfriend*cough*
> 
> Now without further ado,  
> Enjoy❤︎

[Thursday night, Day 1]

The buzzer blares through the door of the apartment, high pitched and grating in the thick, sticky silence of the night. Takahiro waits a moment, listening for movement from within. He waits, and when he hears nothing he presses the doorbell again, once, then twice. He glances over his shoulder when a dog barks in another apartment, maybe on another floor, before someone shushes it angrily. He turns back to the door and presses an ear to the cool, smooth surface, but still he hears nothing. Straightening up with a huff, he rolls his shoulders, presses his lips together, and jabs at the doorbell, holding it down. The buzzer blares at him through the door.

After around 17 seconds—Takahiro started counting at some point—he hears the thumping sound of feet and steps to the side just as the door flies open, releasing a wave of cool air and the sound of the buzzer unimpeded into the night along with a raised voice, straining to be heard over the noise.

"Excuse me, can I h—huh?"

Takahiro lifts his finger off the doorbell, the buzzer finally falling quiet. The sudden silence is like a clap over his ears as he throws up a peace sign. "Yo."

Matsukawa stares at him, words sitting unfinished in his open mouth, eyes unusually large and framed by slight bags.

"Did you just get back?" Takahiro asks, eyeing up his rumpled black shirt, untucked, the sleeves messily rolled up to his elbows. He checks his phone. "Oh, I guess it is barely seven."

Matsukawa blinks slowly, his hand tightening on the door handle. He works his jaw and raises his eyebrows. "Excuse me?" he repeats, his voice edging on incredulous.

"Sorry for the lack of warning. Can I come in?" He moves forwards without waiting for a reply and Matsukawa leans back to make space for him. Takahiro immediately toes off his shoes and steps through to the wonderfully air-conditioned kitchen while Matsukawa locks the front door with a weary sigh. He takes a moment to breathe in the familiar smell—fresh and green, like a forest, mixed with the woody undertones of sandalwood incense—before slinging his duffel bag onto the floor by the table and heading straight for the fridge to start poking through the containers of food and ingredients. He notices a chopping board on the side piled high with vegetables just as Matsukawa joins him at the counter. "Oh, were you already in the middle of cooking?"

"I was. And you’re _not_ sorry, but by all means, go on and make yourself at home," Matsukawa says. He’s already schooled his voice and face back into their usual laidbackness as he picks up the board and starts separating the vegetables. Takahiro shuts the fridge, leaning on the door and letting his gaze follow the path of Matsukawa’s hands, watching as his fingers cage in the vegetables and sweep them into small bowls.

"Have you eaten?"

"Hmm?" Takahiro tears his eyes away with a jolt. Matsukawa doesn’t look at him, instead motioning for him to open the fridge. "Nope, not yet."

"Guess you better run to the shop, then."

Takahiro watches Matsukawa take out a packet of mince meat before the words register. "What, you’re not gonna cook for me?" he whines.

Matsukawa pauses while rummaging through the fridge. "Well, unfortunately, I only take reservations from people that call in beforehand." He takes out a container of cooked rice and then reaches for a large frying pan, placing it on the hob. He looks over his shoulder at Takahiro, who’s still leaning on the open fridge door, and raises his eyebrows. He nods towards the front door. Takahiro frowns.

"Wait, you’re serious?"

Matsukawa shrugs, and Takahiro glances at the fridge full of containers, at the ingredients on the counter, then back to Matsukawa. Matsukawa holds his gaze a moment longer before his lips twitch and he hurriedly turns away with a small cough. Takahiro shuts the fridge with a huff and a barely concealed smile as Matsukawa chuckles lowly.

"Dickhead."

"So why exactly are you here this time?"

Takahiro brings the can to his lips and tips the rest of the beer into his mouth, feeling the liquid swirl over his tongue. He leans back on one hand, eyes following the line of the baggy, borrowed sweatpants to his bare feet under the coffee table. If he tilts his head to the side, he knows he’ll see Matsukawa’s own feet just beyond his.

"Well, there’s this thing called a _bus_ , and sometimes, if you’re lucky, there will be one that goes a~ll the way to Sendai, conveniently waiting for you right when—"

"Hanamaki," Matsukawa cuts him off, his eyes boring into him over the top of his own beer.

Sighing, Takahiro places his empty can on the table and leans back to lie down. His foot nudges Matsukawa’s out of the way. "I quit my job," he says, like _by the way_.

"Again?" It’s bordering on unsurprised. "You only started a few months ago."

"Mm."

"When did you quit?"

Takahiro stares at the ceiling light. "This morning."

"Wait, what? When did you _decide_ to quit?"

"This morning," he repeats. "Keep up."

"Wait—wait wait wait"—he turns to look at Matsukawa, but his face is obscured by the afterimage of the light, just a greenish circle on a wide body clad in a grey t-shirt that would suit Takahiro better than it suits him—"you decided to quit this morning?"

Takahiro nods.

"And then, what, you just—quit? _This morning_?"

"Yeah."

Even behind the afterimage he can tell that Matsukawa is struggling to maintain his composure, and it almost makes Takahiro want to laugh. He throws an arm over his face and inhales; his skin smells like Matsukawa’s herbal body wash. He exhales loudly. "Look, they were all bells and fucking whistles, and as soon as my probation ended they revealed their shitty true selves. And the _plebeians_ didn’t even like cream puffs. Not a single, miserable one of them!" He lets his arm drop heavily to the ground and stares over at the far wall as he pushes out a long-suffering sigh before putting on his most melodramatic, self-pitying voice. "Maybe I should just give up and become a NEET. I don’t think adult life is for me."

Matsukawa doesn’t dignify him with a response for long enough that Takahiro sneaks a peak out of the corner of his eye and sees him frowning down at his beer.

"Did something happen?"

"What d’you mean?"

"I mean was there a _reason_ why you woke up and suddenly decided to walk out on your job today?"

Takahiro sits back up with a groan. "Nah, not really," he mutters. He reaches for his beer before remembering the can is empty. "I just…realised I was wasting my time. And decided I was done."

And it was true. It had been a normal day; he had woken up late that morning as usual, begrudgingly gone to work as usual, sat down at his computer in his claustrophobic cubbyhole as usual, and watched his supervisor come over and drop a pile of paperwork that wasn’t his to fill out on his desk— _as usual_. It was, by all measures, a day exactly like any other. That is, until he had had a minor epiphany, stood up and declared said minor epiphany— _I’m done with this shit_ —grabbed his bag and suit jacket that he hated wearing, and walked out not minutes later to the part-stunned, part-spluttering silence of his supervisor and colleagues.

"So nothing happened, and you had time to go home and pack a bag and grab some clothes, but you didn’t think to grab any clothes to _actually_ wear?"

Takahiro glances over at the pale blue shirt and beige slacks he had put on that morning, crumpled on top of a bag that held only his computer, a pair of jeans he belatedly realised had a coffee stain on them, more uncomfortable shirts, and his last few pairs of clean underwear.

He looks down at the borrowed tracksuits and t-shirt he’s wearing now—large and soft and enveloping him in the clean and comforting smell of Matsukawa—then looks back to Matsukawa and coos, "Why, don’t you like seeing a normal size person borrow your titan sweats?"

"It’s not borrowing if you take them without permission. And you’re just as much of a giant as me."

"Well, you could just say no like the tyrannical overlord you are and make me live in my underwear for your viewing pleasure. Also"—Takahiro hooks his thumb in the waistband of the tracksuits, pulls it away from his hip, then lets it flop back like a sad rubber band—"I beg to differ."

Matsukawa reaches behind him to snatch a cushion off the couch and hurls it at Takahiro.

"Gross. You’re officially banned from the premises." But there’s warmth in his voice, and Takahiro snickers over the top of the cushion. "It’s getting late, I should go to bed. Do you want the spare futon?"

Takahiro meets his eyes for just a second before he looks to the cushion in his lap. "Nah, couch is good." As usual.

Matsukawa is silent, perhaps gauging whether it’s worth debating. Then he tilts his head back and downs the rest of his beer.

Takahiro’s stomach twists at the sight. Suddenly, it’s too early for the night to end just yet.

"Don’t you want just one more, though?" Takahiro drawls.

Matsukawa’s mouth twists into a half-grimace as he looks at him. Takahiro bats his eyelashes at him exaggeratedly, twirling his own empty can on the table.

"For old time’s sake?"

He watches Matsukawa consider it, and then watches him sigh resignedly.

"You’re a menace."

Takahiro cackles as Matsukawa goes to the kitchen and grabs two more beers.

* * *

[Friday, Day 2]

Takahiro wakes to his alarm screeching at him from somewhere in the room.

He sits up with a start and practically falls off the couch as he tries to kick off the thin blanket tangled around his legs, tripping across the floor towards the source of the sound. Falling to his knees in front of his bag, he rifles through the mess of clothes until he finds his phone and stops the alarm.

Surrounded by the grey filtered light of morning, he sits there for another moment while waiting for his heart to slow and his brain to finish booting up. He runs a hand down his face as the memories from the previous day come rushing back to him, and he exhales slowly, eyes closed. He thinks of his boss, probably expecting him to turn up today. Probably thinking that yesterday was just a childish blip. There’s the tiniest, 0.0002% twinge of worry in his chest, but it’s far outweighed by the relief he feels at knowing that he doesn’t have to go back to that office today. Or next week. Or any day, ever again.

Takahiro pushes to his feet with a yawn, stretching as he walks over to the bathroom.

"Ah."

Matsukawa meets his eyes in the mirror, surrounded by clouds of steam. The whole room smells of herbs and an underlying musk that Takahiro couldn’t describe accurately as anything other than _Matsukawa_. Placing his razor on the back of the sink, he runs a hand through the damp hair hanging over his forehead as he turns to face Takahiro with only a towel wrapped around his waist—a towel which probably wouldn’t look so comically short on a normal person. A thin spread of shaving cream covers half his jaw and beads of water still cling to his skin like checkpoints for Takahiro’s gaze as it wanders over the wide expanse of his chest.

"Morning."

His eyes snap up to Matsukawa’s face. Takahiro scrunches his nose at him. "Ugh, how do you still look like that?"

Matsukawa snorts, crossing his arms and running his own gaze up and down Takahiro’s body. Takahiro keeps his eyes on his almost smirking face still covered in shaving cream. "Maybe you should try working out and eating some real food once in a while. Then you could wear my _titan sweats_ without looking like the main girl in a terrible Hollywood rom-com."

Takahiro looks down at the way Matsukawa’s clothes hang off his frame—the loose waistband of the tracksuits almost threatening to slip on his hips—but he knows that it’s just because Matsukawa Issei is a veritable giant that went though a _third_ growth spurt after high school and somehow still finds the time to go to the gym and actually cook for himself every day. It has nothing to do with the fact that Takahiro had been subsisting off whatever convenience store food he could scrounge up for the better part of this year.

He glances up to see Matsukawa watching him, his expression unreadable, and grimaces. "I don’t need real food as long as I can still beat you at arm wrestling."

"I beg to differ. On both accounts."

"Bet?"

Matsukawa chuckles and the low vibrations seem to resonate in Takahiro’s chest. "Ask me again when you’ve actually eaten something, you twig." He turns back to the mirror to finish shaving. "Definitely couldn’t beat Iwaizumi, though."

" _No one_ could beat Iwaizumi. Now or ever."

Takahiro goes back to the living room to flop onto the couch with his phone, scrolling blindly through his social media while Matsukawa gets ready. He doesn’t look up when Matsukawa pushes his feet out of the way to sit on the end of the couch, the sharp scent of aftershave washing over him. 

"You going to do anything today?"

Takahiro purses his lips. "Mmm…Dunno. Sleep. Gorge myself on your _real food_. Look into NEET lifestyles, maybe." He lowers his phone to look at Matsukawa, dressed in a white shirt and black slacks. "Enjoy my freedom."

"You could go see your family. Aya-chan keeps complaining that you never visit."

"Aya’s such a—why is she complaining to you in the first place?"

"She was complaining to Keiko."

Takahiro sucks on his teeth, pointedly ignoring the quirk of Matsukawa’s lips.

"Whatever, no. If I tell them I’m here they’re just going to spend hours nagging me about my job and then nag me to come home and then nag me to stop bothering you," he says, waving his phone. "Why would I do _that_ when I could just stay here and enjoy some peaceful, uninterrupted sleep?"

Matsukawa holds his gaze. After a moment, he stands and picks up the blanket that Takahiro had left in a heap on the floor, folding it. He drops it on Takahiro’s face.

"Oi—!"

"Make yourself some breakfast. You know where the spare key is. I should be home early today."

Takahiro flips the blanket down and looks up at Matsukawa’s calm expression. "Okay. I’ll just be here, relaxing. _Enjoying my freedom_."

Matsukawa snorts and flips the blanket back over Takahiro’s face. "Alright, you parasite. See you later."

When he hears the front door shut, Takahiro slides the blanket off his face, inhales deeply, and sighs.

Takahiro’s first experience of real, personal injustice came two years after he had graduated from university. He had experienced injustice before—he was, after all, a middle child—but there was something distinctly cold and unforgiving and unbearably physical in the injustice that came with having his very first promotion at his very first job stolen from right under his nose by an old guy with close to zero actual knowledge; a guy that had joined the company approximately 1 year and 11 months after Takahiro; a guy that ended up making Takahiro do all the hard work anyway, just for none of the recognition or pay.

Half a year later had finally seen the start of Takahiro’s new title: Serial Job-Quitter.

It’s not that he liked quitting jobs; it’s just that every job that was actually interesting or let him do what he was qualified for and wanted to do also seemed to be morally and legally questionable. Or insisted on paying him crumbs.

However, as he’s lounging on Matsukawa’s comfortable, familiar couch in his comfortable, familiar tracksuits, laptop balanced on his chest and once again scrolling through hundreds of listings on another godforsaken job website, he’s beginning to wonder if it really was such a great idea to walk out on his third job this year. Besides the fact that the temptation to just hole up in Matsukawa’s living room for the rest of his days was through the roof, his chances of getting a reference from his old company were also completely and utterly shot now. Plus, in hindsight, they were objectively not the worst company he had ever worked for; he probably could have stuck it out long enough to hand in a proper notice and it wouldn’t have made a significant difference to his currently poor quality of life. And they _had_ promised he could be promoted to a better position after six months, which hadn’t been that far off; maybe a promotion would have made it somewhat bearable. Even if they were all stuck-up bottom feeders with no apparent desire to do anything except breathe through the fax machine.

He shakes his head. Promises mean fuck all to people at the top of the ladder. He knows that. He had learnt it the hard way, and he had to stop expecting things to change _._

He creates a box—as tall and wide as the pathetic excuse for a cubicle he had had to work in—and shoves all the unwelcome thoughts flying around his head into it. A voice somewhere at the back of his mind tells him that this is only going to delay the inevitable, but he stuffs that in the box, too. Then he tapes it up with industrial-grade brain-tape and pushes it all the way to the back of his mind, where it can stay with its other boxed-up friends until he has the time and energy to deal with it. Which would ideally be never, but will probably have to be at his next interview.

His phone screen lights up again for the dozenth time that morning with another call from Better-Position-in-Six-Months.

With an irritated grunt, he rejects the call and keeps scrolling. Then, as he’s clicking onto the 19th page, he sees an advert for the Olympics.

A lightbulb goes off in his head.

Takahiro reaches for his phone on the table. He puts it on loudspeaker and balances the phone on his shoulder as he continues clicking through the long list of jobs wrapped up in a pretty pink bow of _yearly bonuses_ and _guaranteed days off_ while the line rings.

_"Yello, Kuroo speaking. Is this Hana-kun or his kidnapper?"_

"Do you have any vacancies for programmers? Or maybe someone to fix your website? Or literally just anything that requires a computer?"

 _"…Did you quit your job again?"_ Kuroo’s voice is bored. Like a parent that knew they should have seen this coming.

Takahiro opens up a new tab with the JVA’s website.

_"Hanamaki?"_

He pushes the laptop down his body and shuffles back to sit upright. "I just thought maybe you could benefit from having someone that isn’t illiterate taking care of all your IT needs, what with the Olympics coming up next month…" Although looking at the website, it’s actually smooth and not designed to give its visitors instant eye strain—which, by Japanese standards, is practically a gold medal.

There’s a laugh on the other end, and Takahiro’s lips twitch. _"I thought you worked with machinery?"_

"You do realise I also know how basic IT works, right? I even did that company’s security last year."

_"Doesn’t mean you were any good; I also know you got fired from there."_

"Fuck off, only because I called them wankers for not paying me what they agreed to pay me! I’m good at _everything_ I do."

Another laugh. _"Well, unfortunately, I can only offer you a position in HR at this time either way."_

Takahiro’s lip curls back. "I can’t believe you’re seriously offering me paperwork. Clearly, calling you was a mistake."

Kuroo snickers. _"So you finally quit Hell Job?"_

Takahiro sighs. "Yep."

_"Wanna grab a beer to celebrate?"_

"Can’t, I’m in Sendai."

A beat. _"Well that explains it."_

Takahiro frowns. "What?"

_"Your sister—the hot one—called me today to ask if I knew where you were. Apparently your work has been trying to get through to you."_

Takahiro is torn between complaining about his sister calling Kuroo and Kuroo calling his sister hot. "Firstly, tell Shiho to mind her own fucking business. Secondly, yeah, I know. I’ve been rejecting their calls."

Kuroo snorts. _"Okay, well, when you wouldn’t pick up they called her, and then she sent me to your place to see if you were alive, but you weren’t there so I figured you were either dead or kidnapped. But to be honest, I should have known you’d skip town and head straight to Sendai within a picosecond."_

"Stop making up words. And you went to my place?"

_"Mm…more like I’m there now."_

"Fuck off?"

His phone beeps and he looks at the request for a video call. He accepts and an image of Kuroo appears, his mouth stretched into his signature lazy smirk as he waves. _"Yo."_ Kuroo moves the phone to show off Takahiro’s own kitchen. _"Nice place you got here."_

Takahiro can’t help the smile that creeps onto his face. "Get the fuck out of my apartment, Kuroo."

_"Maybe you shouldn’t hide your spare key inside your letterbox if you don’t want people just waltzing in."_

"Most people don’t have freakishly thin wrists and long fingers like you."

 _"Hey, these are God’s fingers."_ Kuroo winks at him, propping his chin in his hand with a shit-eating grin.

Takahiro makes a retching sound.

_"So what are you doing? Are you staying there?"_

Takahiro stares at Kuroo for a moment, chewing at the inside of his lip as he slides down the couch; the thought of moving back to Sendai flashes through his mind before he can stop it.

He scowls. "Absolutely not, there is fuck all to do here. I’m just…takin’ a break. Like, deciding what overlord I wanna sign my name over to next." He shrugs. "I dunno. We’ll see."

Kuroo doesn’t say anything immediately, but then nods, clicking his tongue. _"Yeah, alright. Well, let me know if you need anything."_

"I literally just asked you for a job and you told me no. Or are you offering to be my sugar daddy?" He grins as Kuroo holds up a middle finger. "Nah, cheers mate. Appreciate it."

_"No problem."_

"…Now get out of my apartment and go to work, you slacker."

_"Piss off."_

Takahiro wakes up with a start for the second time that day. The door to the kitchen has been shut, only a tiny sliver of light shining through the gap underneath it, but the sounds and smells of cooking fill the dark room. And if Matsukawa, a responsible adult, is back and clearly making food, it can’t possibly be the middle of the night, despite the fact that that’s what it feels like inside Takahiro’s addled brain.

He sits up and stretches, groaning at the stiffness in his neck and shoulders before letting his hands drop with a whooshing exhale. He feels the edge of his phone in his lap and fumbles for it automatically, squinting at the brightness of his screen. Below the bold 19:23 is an obscene number of notifications from Aya, Shiho, and his mum, as well as a single _[My bad]_ from Kuroo.

Well, that can be one more problem for future Takahiro. Yawning, he drops the phone on the couch and makes his way to the kitchen, wincing as he opens the door and is assaulted once more by bright lights.

"Good morning, princess," Matsukawa calls out without turning away from the hob.

Takahiro groans as he stumbles over to the table and drops into a chair. He buries his face in his hands. "It’s not morning and it’s not good."

"Did you talk to Aya-chan?"

"No. But fucking Kuroo told Shiho, so now—" He lifts his head and narrows his eyes at Matsukawa’s back. "Wait, did _you_ talk to Aya?"

Matsukawa chuckles. "She called me. I told her you finally hit your quarter-life crisis and set out on a journey to find yourself." He glances at Takahiro out of the corner of his eye. "Call her in a few days."

Tension he hadn’t realised was there seeps out of his shoulders. "Thanks," he mumbles. Matsukawa shrugs in response.

Takahiro sits back with a sigh, staring at the large pot Matsukawa is stirring, sniffing to try and place the familiar smell. His stomach growls and he realises then just how hungry he is.

Matsukawa raises an eyebrow at him. "I’m making bolognese. It’ll be done soon."

Takahiro hums and sinks down into the chair, closing his eyes. After a moment, he opens them to watch the muscles in Matsukawa’s back move under his thin work shirt, the fabric clinging to his shoulders.

"What’s up with 'princess' anyway?" he asks then. His eyes travel up to Matsukawa’s face as he glances over his shoulder at him. "You finally get a girlfriend or something? Got confused about the hottie seductively draped over your couch?" Takahiro waggles his eyebrows as Matsukawa frowns at him before turning back to hob.

"If only you were as seductive as you think you are. And no, it’s just because, you know, you literally turned up with zero warning demanding food and clothing and a place to stay and then proceeded to sleep all day while I made excuses for you to your family. Thought it was pretty princess-like, don’t you think?" He turns around again and crosses his arms to stare down his nose at Takahiro. "'Parasite' is good too, though."

It had become something of a habit for Takahiro to come and stay with Matsukawa when he was between jobs. And to be _entirely_ fair, he usually gave more warning, if only in the form of a vague message—such as the infamous _[lol called bossman a wanker so he told me 2 go home c u sn]_ —that gave Matsukawa a vague idea to expect him. But this particular visit had kind of sprung itself on Takahiro as well, and he’d barely had time to process his return to unemployment before his autopilot had already packed him a bag and put him on the midday bus to Sendai within hours of quitting.

Takahiro snorts. "You’re the one cooking me food."

"Yeah, so I don’t have you starving to death on my conscience." He turns back to the hob and gives the sauce a stir. "I noticed that even making food is apparently too much work for someone with no responsibilities."

Takahiro grins.

"Oh, by the way"—Matsukawa turns back and Takahiro bites his cheeks to hide his smile—"Iwaizumi is in town with his girlfriend, the one from America. We’re going to the usual izakaya tomorrow evening with Yahaba and Kyotani."

A lightbulb suddenly illuminates the dusty corner of Takahiro’s brain where Monday mornings reside. "Oh shit!"

Matsukawa raises an eyebrow at him. "What? Did you forget you have a date?"

Takahiro presses his hands into his eyes. "No, I just—shit, I forgot Iwaizumi told me. We were gonna go for dinner when they come to Tokyo."

Matsukawa laughs. "So you _did_ forget about a date."

Takahiro groans. "No—I mean—urgh!" He lifts his face to grimace at Matsukawa. "I had a whole photo album prepped of Iwaizumi looking like an absolute mug. Like, shots of him drunk and sleeping and in his underwear and shit."

"I assume you mean embarrassing shots, not sexy ones."

"Fuck!" Takahiro slumps forward and buries his face in his hands, groaning. "It took so fucking long to put together! All that time: wasted!"

Matsukawa doesn’t say anything for a moment. There’s a rustling, followed by the sound of a window sliding open, and then the distinct click of a lighter. The smell of tobacco hits Takahiro’s nose seconds later.

"Does that mean you aren’t going back to Tokyo?"

Takahiro lifts his head to look at Matsukawa, but his face is turned towards the small window above the kitchen sink, a cigarette held to his lips. Dressed in his usual slim-fit shirt and slacks, leaning against the counter with his long legs crossed in front of him and body twisted, Takahiro can’t help but think about the borrowed tracksuits still hanging off his own frame not looking anywhere near as baggy on Matsukawa’s shoulders.

"Of course I’m going back to Tokyo." He pushes down the reminder that he had made zero headway on even noting what jobs were currently available.

"But not before she goes back to America?"

He hadn’t thought that far ahead. When he was packing his bag, he hadn’t thought much beyond _Crap, I forgot to do washing last weekend_ , let alone where he would be whenever it was that Iwaizumi’s girlfriend was going back to the US.

Takahiro shrugs. "Dunno. Maybe." He watches Matsukawa take another drag of the cigarette between his fingers and blow the smoke out the window. "Also, I thought you were gonna quit?"

Matsukawa eye’s slide over to Takahiro, dark and hooded. He looks away as he takes a long, slow drag. "Me too."

"You know, I don’t think it’s gonna look that great when the funeral home director dies at the age of thirty."

Matsukawa laughs then. He turns and stubs the cigarette out in the sink, only half-finished. "At least I won’t have to pay for the funeral."

* * *

[Saturday, Day 3]

The next day, despite being a Saturday, has Matsukawa going to work again—because death doesn’t care about work-life balance—and leaves Takahiro free to sleep after a few hours spent staring at his computer screen while ignoring his messages. That is, until Matsukawa gets home in the late afternoon and all but drags him from the couch into the car, shoving him towards the shower with some of his own clean clothes en route.

"Come on, we have one olympic trainer and his American dream waiting for us. You can at least _try_ not to look like a NEET."

Exhausted, Takahiro can’t remember the last time he was so reluctant to socialise, and having to sit a foot away from Matsukawa’s tense silence at the fact that Takahiro had failed to eat again didn’t help. After years of friendship, he could practically feel the worry emanating from Matsukawa, and it did nothing but put him in an even worse mood the whole way into town.

By the time they all come stumbling out into the street at the end of the night, Takahiro is practically skipping, his liquor-laden voice echoing through the quiet streets of Sendai.

"I cannot believe that Iwaizumi has been with that chick this whole time. I mean, seriously, did you see her?" Takahiro asks when the others have left. He’s feeling significantly better after having consumed copious amounts of food and alcohol, the pleasant fog in his brain erasing everything except the last few hours of conversation—and the sight of Matsukawa, chuckling, eyes bright and hands pushed deep into his pockets as he watches Takahiro walk backwards.

"Yeah, I saw her."

"Then why aren’t you more shocked?! Like, why did it take him this long to introduce her? Was there something wrong with her?"

"This _is_ Iwaizumi we’re talking about; it’s not the first time he's kept something to himself for an unreasonable amount of time."

Takahiro rolls his eyes and waves a hand dismissively. "Okay, sure, but no. Firstly, Iwaizumi and Oikawa are both idiots that spent God knows how many years toeing a fucking line in the sand that probably got washed away as soon as one of them hit puber—no, _shut up_ , you didn’t see them at the entrance ceremony—and secondly, Jenny is a _normal_ girl. Not his—childhood-friend-turned-not-so-secret-lover-turned-estranged-ex or whatever bullshit they’ve got going on. He had no reason to hide her!" he shouts, his voice straining.

Matsukawa shushes him with a barely concealed smile as he pulls his cigarettes from his pocket.

"I think Iwaizumi’s still trying to figure some shit out, though," Matsukawa mumbles around a cigarette, and it’s so quiet Takahiro’s not sure it was even directed at him.

He rolls his eyes again. "Sure, the _national volleyball team athletic trainer_ is trying to _figure shit out_. Where does that leave the rest of us mere mortals, then?" He reaches out and snatches the lighter from Matsukawa’s hand. He can’t help but grin at the way Matsukawa looks up at him in mild surprise, unlit cigarette dangling from his lips as Takahiro spins the lighter between his fingers. "What if my only goal in life is to look after my best friend so he doesn’t smoke himself into an early grave?"

Matsukawa clenches his teeth and takes an unnecessarily huge step forwards. Takahiro jumps back and puts a hand against Matsukawa’s collarbone, holding the lighter out of reach. "Did the drunk freeloader sleeping on _my_ couch, wearing _my_ clothes and eating _my_ food just say _he’s_ the one looking after _me_?" Matsukawa growls. The vibrations travel along Takahiro’s arm and into his chest.

He laughs as Matsukawa pushes against his hand, stretching to grab at the lighter. Takahiro twists out of the way and skips back clumsily, cheeks aching as he watches Matsukawa stumble forwards. "I’m trying to _help_ you, Matsukawa-kun. You have to live a long and prosperous life so you can watch Iwaizumi figure shit out."

"Every time you turn up at my place you shave ten years off my life—if I die an early death it’s on _you_." He lunges forward again, fisting one hand in Takahiro’s collar and grabbing the arm holding the lighter with the other, trying to wrestle him closer. Takahiro cackles as Matsukawa grits out, "Come on, don’t be a little shit, Hanamaki."

Takahiro can feel tears pricking at the corners of his eyes, face and body aching from the strain of keeping the lighter from Matsukawa. "When the fuck did you get so strong," he gasps, stretching to try and stop Matsukawa from reaching. Matsukawa’s hand slides along his arm and firm fingers wrap around his wrist. "Fuck _off_ , you _bastard—_ "

He tries to twist out of his grip and back away, and then his foot catches.

The world tilts. Everything moves as if in slow motion as he pitches sideways, watching the ground come rushing up towards him—

Until Matsukawa is suddenly yanking him back up with a violence that knocks the breath from his lungs.

The cigarette comes tumbling out from between Matsukawa’s lips along with guffawing laughter. Takahiro can’t help but stare as his brain catches up with the sensations in his body—heart pounding, blood rushing in his ears, he’s struggling to catch his breath—because even as he registers Matsukawa’s arm wrapped around his waist, fingers pressed firm between his ribs, it feels like he’s still falling.

A smirk. "Payback."

He can smell the alcohol on Matsukawa’s breath as it ghosts over his lips, can almost _taste_ the residual sweat and incense on his skin which had long ago become a part of his unique smell. Takahiro’s own alcohol-thick breath catches in his throat when Matsukawa releases his hold on his collar and leans forward—

He swipes the lighter that Takahiro had completely forgotten about from his hand. Still smirking, he dangles it in front of his face just as Takahiro had done to him.

"Thank _you_."

Takahiro takes a shuddering breath and blinks at him dumbly. Matsukawa is so close that Takahiro could count the strands in the loose curl of hair that persists in hanging between his eyebrows, or the number of city lights reflected in his eyes that are surrounded by a half dozen smile lines. He’s so close that Takahiro thinks he may pass out, because Matsukawa has used up all the oxygen in the air and replaced it with green and musk and _Issei—_

And then Matsukawa blinks. The hand on his waist slips away and Matsukawa steps back, righting him and releasing him all at once as his gaze falls to the ground.

Takahiro sways, watching Matsukawa pick up his fallen cigarette and slip it between his lips to light it. He doesn’t say anything this time, his eyes simply following Matsukawa’s movements as he takes a long drag of the cigarette. He slowly blows out the smoke, creating a cloud that fills the air between them and Takahiro’s nose with the bitter scent of tobacco.

Matsukawa looks at Takahiro as if from behind a curtain. He jerks his chin. "Come on, it’s late." He turns and starts walking without waiting for Takahiro to follow.

* * *

_It was warm. Dark. The air thick and heady with music and lights that pulsed and vibrated through his body, through his chest, through his head. Sweat stuck his shirt to his back and his jeans to his thighs, and some part of him wished he had picked different clothes. Bodies bumped into him, damp and heavy and unbalanced. All he could smell was sweat, smoke, and the sticky sweetness of overpriced mixers and beer._

_He felt distant and fuzzy—drunk. Someone wrapped an arm around his waist and he felt the weight of their hand through the cool sweat on his shirt. He let them pull on his body, pull him against them as he continued to move, focusing only on the rhythmic fog filling his brain. At some point, his arms wrapped around them and he realised vaguely—so vaguely that the thought was gone before he was even sure he’d had it—that they were tall. Taller than him. He realised this, because when he threaded his hands through smooth hair to pull them to him, he had to brace himself against their soft body and reach up._

[Day 4]

The dream clings to Takahiro as he comes to the next day, and it takes him a moment to realise that it was a memory. But the unwelcome nostalgia is quickly buried by the headache that spikes at the front of his mind, sharp and white-hot. He groans.

"Oh, good, you’re up." It’s Matsukawa, dressed and showered, his damp hair curling over his forehead, stood in the doorway to the kitchen with two steaming mugs.

Takahiro grimaces at him. He opens his mouth and finds that it tastes like sour ash. "What time is it?" he croaks. He sits up and pushes the heels of his hands into his eyes.

"Just after 9." The couch dips as Matsukawa takes a seat, bringing his freshly-showered scent with him. His hip presses against Takahiro’s knee. "Here, have some coffee. I’ll make breakfast while you shower, then we need to do some shopping before we go to Keiko’s."

Takahiro lifts his head to squint at Matsukawa. "What?"

Weighed down with several bags of food, Takahiro is still feeling a little worse for wear when they get to Matsukawa’s sister’s house a couple of hours later. Keiko opens the door looking simultaneously exhausted and high on adrenaline, and Takahiro watches as her eyes dart from Matsukawa to the bags, back to Matsukawa, and then, finally, land on Takahiro.

"Hiro-kun!" she exclaims far too loudly, stepping out and throwing her arms around him, her black curls tickling under his nose.

"Hi, Keiko." He pats her shoulder affectionately around the bag hanging from his elbow. "Been a while. You’re looking smaller."

She releases him and stands back, beaming. "Aya-chan told me you were taking a break. Are you on holiday?"

 _Aya and Shiho_ both _need to learn to mind their own business._

"He’s tired of being an adult," shouts Matsukawa from inside the house as he hauls half the bags into the kitchen.

Takahiro opens his mouth to say something but Keiko only laughs delightedly. "Come in, come in! You can finally meet Reina-chan!"

Last time Takahiro had been in Miyagi, Keiko had been well into her third trimester and more than done with being pregnant; although Kazuma had been a Duracell battery born into an abnormally large baby’s body, his nine months had been virtually painless, to the point that Keiko had felt almost betrayed when Reina had brought with her a whole army of complications that kept Keiko bedridden for more than half of it. But despite the difficult pregnancy, Takahiro had heard that the birth itself had been even easier than Kazuma’s, perhaps because Reina had been born early and almost half his size.

Matsukawa is already holding Reina when Keiko steers Takahiro into the living room. Sure enough, she looks like doll in his arms, and is staring at Matsukawa with a single hand reaching up and grasping at his shirt. She’s already got a full head of familiar black curls. Matsukawa looks up when they enter and grins.

"Whoa, she’s still so tiny." Takahiro comes to stand next to Matsukawa so he can look down at Reina. She blinks and focuses on him, making tiny gurgling sounds, and he thinks how the photos he had seen until now did _not_ do her justice. "She’s adorable."

"You want to hold her?" Matsukawa asks.

"Can I?"

A chuckle. "Of course."

And then Takahiro is holding Reina, and even though there’s a minor burst of panic in his chest at how fragile she looks, he’s surprised by how not-tiny she actually is.

They both stare at each other for a moment, Reina's small mouth pinched shut between huge cheeks under big, dark eyes—until she squeals happily and reaches a little hand up towards Takahiro’s face. His heart instantly fills with warmth. "Oh my God, she’s adorable," he repeats, softer. He offers her a finger. She grabs it with her whole miniature hand and he thinks his heart might burst.

"She’s 9 weeks old," Keiko tells him, and he doesn’t have to look up to see the pride and pure joy written across her face. 

"No kidding…" He smiles down at Reina and she kicks her legs. "Hi, Rei-chan…"

"Come and sit in the dining room," Keiko tells him, and he realises that Matsukawa has already disappeared again. "We can talk while Issei cooks."

"Oh, sure." He hesitates, glancing between Reina and Keiko. "Uh, what shall I…?"

"Oh, bring Reina-chan too, if you don’t mind keeping her," she says with a giggle as they make their way to the table. Reina is still holding Takahiro’s finger, closing both hands around it and making bubbly little half-squeal half-gurgle sounds. "She seems to like you."

As Takahiro takes a seat, he’s greeted by piles and piles of Pokémon drawings and crayons spread all over the table. Keiko follows his gaze, laughs a little too loudly again, and immediately starts scooping them up into a haphazard pile in the corner.

"Kazuma is going through a phase. He’s actually out with a friend right now, catching Pokémon, but he should be back soon."

"I was wondering why it was so quiet," calls Matsukawa from the kitchen as he leans into the doorway. He smirks at Takahiro. "You know, you’re lucky you’ve got a bigger princess to look after so you don’t have to help."

Keiko interjects with a scolding laugh, "You can’t make a guest help, what is wrong with you!"

"Am _I_ not a guest?"

"No, you’re my brother!"

Matsukawa snorts at that and vanishes back into the kitchen. The whirr of the extractor fan starts up a moment later, followed by the first sounds of sizzling.

"So why are you here?" Keiko asks brightly, producing a basket of laundry from under the table and beginning to fold tiny baby clothes. "What was Issei saying, you’re tired of being an adult?" She says it in the same slightly mocking but genuinely caring tone that Matsukawa himself always uses.

"Oh, uh…" Reina pulls at his shirt and Takahiro looks down to meet her gummy smile. She is _cute_. "I quit my job the other day. Haven’t quite figured out what I’m doing next," he mumbles. He shrugs and forces a wry chuckle. "I…didn’t exactly plan it this time."

"I see," Keiko says with a hum. "This is the job you started a few months ago?"

He nods.

"I see," she says again, quieter and understanding.

The ensuing silence is filled only with the sounds of cooking and Reina gurgling as she grasps at Takahiro’s fingers clumsily, and it’s comfortable. It’s comfortable, safe, and familiar, and Takahiro’s chest aches just a little bit with how much he's missed it.

"You know," Keiko begins, slotting the clothes into the basket neatly as she folds, "everyone moves at their own pace. I mean, I wasn’t planning to have kids until way, _way_ later when I first started university."

Takahiro’s lips quirk up but he doesn’t say anything, because he does know. They had talked about it before—before Kazuma was born, when Keiko was still writing her thesis and let her fears leak out in the form of quiet tears on one occasion; and then again after Kazuma was born, when she repurposed those tears to carry all her love and affection for _the best choice she ever made_. On multiple occasions.

She pauses with the last one-piece in her lap, her lips curving up as she stares at the folded fabric in her hands. "I had my whole life planned out: graduate, find an awesome paper to write for, travel, start my own company…and then, after I did all the things I wanted to do, _then_ I would find someone and settle down and have kids. But then I met Yusuke and got pregnant with Kazuma, and—" Her eyes shift to land on Reina. With a small shock, Takahiro realises that Reina has fallen asleep with her tiny hands wrapped around his fingers.

Keiko shakes her head, pressing her lips together as love blooms in her eyes. She takes a deep breath in and lets it out in an ever so shaky whoosh. "I would give anything to do it all again, exactly the same. I wouldn’t change a _thing_."

Takahiro tries to imagine having his whole life uprooted by such a small creature; tries to imagine _choosing_ what amounted to a bundle of cells. He tries to imagine giving up on his plans and instead committing to staying home and caring for another human that may or may not turn out to be a tiny terror, which Kazuma had not been far from once he learnt to walk.

He tries to imagine the weight of that responsibility; he tries to imagine not feeling any regret or bitterness after the fact, when hindsight would forever provide the greenest grass to gaze upon from the other side.

"But you know, I was lucky: I got to graduate and have Kazuma, _and_ I got to work for a really great company. Eventually." Keiko glances at the wall and Takahiro follows her gaze to a framed article—her first piece as a regular columnist. "My plans changed, but it's not like I had to give them up; having a kid with the love of my life became one of the things I wanted to do, and then I still got to do a whole load of other things too, because I was lucky enough to have Yusuke and my parents and Issei and Yuuji there to support me. In fact," she says, her voice dropping slightly, mouth still gently curved, "if Issei hadn’t changed his plans, I wonder if I _would_ have given up on writing."

Takahiro’s eyebrows twitch then, because that isn’t something they’d talked about before. "What do you mean? What plans did he have?"

Keiko looks at him, a strange expression flitting across her face. "I mean before he decided to work at the funeral home."

"But I thought—" He glances over his shoulder towards the door of the kitchen, towards the sounds of cooking and the extractor fan. "I thought he had already decided to work at the business before we graduated."

Keiko hums. "Well, he was planning to work for a bit after high school, but that was originally so he could save up for university. But then—"

"Wait," Takahiro interrupts her. This _really_ isn’t something they’d talked about before. "Since when was he planning to go to uni?"

Keiko almost frowns at him. "He didn’t—" She shifts and leans back in her seat. "He never really talked about it, but he was going to save up for a year or two while he decided what he wanted to do. I think he wanted to go to a technical college, actually."

"To do _what_?"

Keiko shakes her head, looking back to the one-piece in her hands. "I, uh…I don’t know. It was a long time ago now. And I’m not sure he ever decided, to be honest, because it got put on the back-burner pretty fast when we found out I was pregnant; _he_ was the one that got super excited and said he’d stay and help."

"Yeah, I—I remember that," Takahiro mumbles. He can still recall the day in third year when Matsukawa had come to school and announced with an uncharacteristically giddy face that he was going to be an uncle. "But I still didn’t think he ever wanted to go to uni or college; he only ever mentioned the business."

Keiko shrugs. "I don’t know. I mean—" She looks to Takahiro almost apologetically. "I’m a _bit_ surprised he never said anything to you, but…I guess that just goes to show that he really wasn’t considering it that seriously. Or maybe he just _really_ liked working with dead people." She raises one eyebrow then and laughs, sitting back and running a hand through her hair. "Actually, I still remember when he came home after his first service and we all thought he was going to quit right there and then—he was _distraught_. He was trying to keep it together, but I genuinely think he was more upset than some of the guests."

Takahiro smiles weakly and snorts despite the way his brain suddenly feels like an old computer desperately trying to run 5 different programs at once. "Yeah, I’m not surprised. The man’s the biggest closet softie I’ve ever met."

Keiko throws her head back laughing.

"What are you cackling about over there?" comes Matsukawa’s voice from the kitchen. Takahiro turns to see him smiling easily from the doorway and he’s reminded again of Matsukawa’s expression all those years ago.

_"I’m gonna be an uncle."_

His stomach twists.

Keiko drops the one-piece on the other clothes and picks up the basket, her voice teasing as she makes her way over. "We were just talking about what a sap you are."

"Firstly, I’d appreciate it if my sister and best friend didn’t gossip about me behind my back. Secondly, I resent that being used as a personal attack," he says, voice light despite his drooping lips. Keiko joins him and they both disappear round the corner, voices muffled.

In the relative quiet, Takahiro looks down at Reina, her tiny face at ease and peaceful, tiny fingers resting on his. He swallows, thinking about the sheer number of hours Takahiro had spent listening to Matsukawa gush over the phone about Kazuma throughout the years—thinking about how he’s probably going to gush even more now.

And even knowing how much Matsukawa likes his job and loves his family—how much he loves being an uncle—there’s still an uneasiness in the depths of Takahiro’s stomach that he can’t quite place.

It’s not the fact that Matsukawa changed his college plans to stay and support his family, because Matsukawa had always been someone that willingly goes out of his way for those he loves. Plus, there’s no reason he should _have_ to go to college, even though both Keiko and their brother Yuuji had gone to university.

Maybe it’s simply the fact that Takahiro hadn’t heard a single whisper of any of this from Matsukawa himself; at no point did he think Matsukawa was even entertaining another plan. And what did he even want to do? Matsukawa wasn’t the kind of person to do something just for the sake of it, so there must have been _something_ that interested him enough that he was considering going to college to study. So why didn’t Takahiro know about it? Why didn’t Matsukawa ever mention it?

Takahiro’s train of thought is broken by Reina letting out a single, small whimper. He glances down at her to find that she’s awake again, eyes wide and shiny. She’s got one hand barely wrapped around his pinky finger now, her round mouth cracked open and just starting to wobble.

Takahiro feels panic spring to life in his chest at the sight. "Aw, hey, Rei-chan," he starts to mumble, gently bouncing Reina in his arms. Her tiny button nose scrunches and her mouth morphs into a full on grimace as another unhappy sound escapes. "Hey, shh shh shh, what’s wrong, it’s okay…"

But that only seems to make things worse, and Takahiro can do nothing but watch as Reina’s mouth stretches and opens wide in horrific slow-motion before she lets out a huge, soul-piercing wail. Takahiro stands, still bouncing her gently, still whispering calming words. It makes no difference, and Reina weeps.

"Ohh no, I’m here, I’m here!" Keiko comes rushing in, immediately dropping the laundry basket by the table and taking Reina from Takahiro, whisking her into the other room with a sing-song voice. "It’s okay Reina-chan, we got this…"

In the sudden silence, Takahiro realises that he can feel an uncomfortable pressure building in his chest as his belly twists unpleasantly. Was he supposed to keep this to himself now? Was it even a secret anymore? If he asked Matsukawa, would he tell him? He’s pretty sure he would, but…

What if he didn’t?

The front door opens and Kazuma’s voice reverberates through the house.

"I’m home!"

Something like relief floods Takahiro’s chest. Swiftly padding over to the doorway, Takahiro sticks his head into the hall. "Yo, Kazu-kun!"

Kazuma is in the middle of unlacing his shoes when he looks up and sees Takahiro. His face lights up as he scrambles to kick his shoes off. "Hana-ji! Your hair is still pink!"

Takahiro laughs, and instantly pushes all thoughts of Matsukawa and secrets to the very back of his mind—somewhere behind Monday and in front of his own mounting life crisis.

Takahiro is trying to focus on Kazuma’s explanations as they look through his Pokémon card collection together when Keiko starts needling Matsukawa about the fact that he should settle down soon. Matsukawa tells her it’s none of her business and she attempts to drag Takahiro into it.

"Hiro-kun, you tell him!"

"Hanamaki, don’t engage her!"

"He can’t stay single forever!"

"Why do you even care?!"

"I’m your big sister, obviously I care about your life!"

"I’m an adult, back off already!"

Takahiro keeps out of it, because he knows that nothing good ever comes of getting involved in a fight between siblings, and because getting involved would mean taking Keiko’s side; opposing an older sister in matters of the heart was not a risk he felt like taking today. Instead, he motions for Kazuma to grab his iPad, and they go out onto the street and catch Pokémon while the adults bicker.

His chest aches for the rest of the day, heavy under a mixture of nostalgia and secrets.

It isn’t until they get back to Matsukawa’s that night—when he’s lying on the couch in the dark, alone, staring at the ceiling—that Takahiro finally lets himself go over his conversation with Keiko.

Did Matsukawa seriously have something he wanted to do so much that he had considered going to college for it? Or was it really just a passing comment that Keiko had happened to hear; an idea wishing to delay the end of student life, rather than an actual plan? Is that why he never mentioned it? Not because it was a secret, but rather because he had never meant to say it?

But somehow that doesn’t sit right with him.

Matsukawa had never been the most forthcoming with his feelings, Takahiro knew that—it would probably be easier to torture intel out of an undercover spy than it would be to get Matsukawa Issei to talk about his feelings—but even with all the shit they said and did on a daily basis from the very first day they met, there had always been a quiet responsibility about Matsukawa that pervaded his actions. And that was exactly what made it strange for Matsukawa to have so completely avoided the subject of going to college after graduation around Takahiro and the others: if he really hadn’t been serious about it, it would have been thrown into conversation akin to one of Iwaizumi’s nicknames for Oikawa.

But it wasn’t. Which meant that on some level, no matter how small, Matsukawa had been serious about the idea of going to college.

So then why would he mention it to his family and not them? Was he embarrassed because he wasn’t sure? Was it because Oikawa and Iwaizumi were setting the bar way too high with their life plans and he felt like he couldn’t say anything? But it’s not as if _Takahiro_ had had some great plan or even had a specific dream for the future. Although, look where that had landed him.

Takahiro adjusts himself on the couch with a huff. Then he realises with a sombre clarity that none of that really matters; it doesn’t matter what Matsukawa had been thinking of maybe doing after high school, and it doesn’t matter why he changed his mind. All that mattered was that Matsukawa was happy with where he was now. And Takahiro knew he was. What _bothered him_ was the reason why Matsukawa had felt he couldn’t tell them. Especially Takahiro.

What could have been so terrible that he felt the need to hide it? Because there must have been times when Matsukawa had had the option to say, " _Hey, I’m thinking of going to college after graduation_ ," and had instead gone with " _Nah, I’m just gonna go work at the funeral home."_ Even if he hadn’t been seriously entertaining the idea, he had still told his family and made the choice to hide it from his friends. Sure, Matsukawa wasn’t obliged to tell them—him—everything, but it still kind of…stung? To know that Matsukawa felt he couldn’t trust him.

It’s like a thorn in his side. He doesn’t even really care that much, but he wants to know. _Why?_

It was one thing to not want to tell Oikawa and Iwaizumi, especially when he first joined the group, but Takahiro? Takahiro, his best friend? Takahiro, the one person he told everything to? Takahiro, who kept no secrets from him?

The thorn in his side shifts and reminds him of another, much deeper thorn. A thorn that Takahiro had been ignoring for years, which had been there for far too long to ever come out now.

Because Takahiro does have secrets too. Even if he doesn’t want to look at them.

He turns to groan into the cushion. There’s absolutely zero sense in Takahiro digging up old misgivings and agonising over the past now; Matsukawa had made his choices and he clearly wasn’t unhappy—if anything, he was having a better time than Takahiro, who was starting to doubt all the choices that he _had_ thought out and planned over the years. Successfully, he had once thought.

Why did Keiko have to bring everything up in the first place? It’s not like he had the love of his life and a baby on the way to forcefully derail his life plans; he just wasn’t happy with where his steps had taken him. It was his own fault if he didn’t know what he was doing.

Was she just telling him to take his time? But he couldn’t take that much time, because he still had to earn money to pay his bills and eat and generally not die on the streets. And he refused to just come crawling back to his family like the eternally-mediocre middle child he was otherwise doomed to be.

He had to figure his shit out.

Takahiro remembers Matsukawa’s words from the other night, but they don’t make him laugh like they might usually have done. Instead, he only feels frustration kindling in his belly.

For a moment, he pictures himself and Matsukawa both making their way down the never-ending path of life: Matsukawa is slowly, easily, walking down a brightly-lit road surrounded by his family; Takahiro, on the other hand, is stumbling about in the dark, unsure where he was even supposed to be going because every single route he tried to take was just another dead-end or a drop off a cliff and—

A thought hits him then like a serve to the back of the head.

Was Takahiro on the wrong path?

He pulls himself up.

He already knew that he now had two options going forward: he could either keep being an engineer and work for peanuts or he could get a "better" job and drown in paperwork. Neither really sounded that great. But there was no chance in _hell_ that he was going to waste any more years of his life training in a company just to have some senior citizen with a bloated networking account take the job he actually wanted from right under his nose without so much as a clue on how to climb a stupid ladder. And yet…

He couldn’t guarantee that that wouldn’t happen either way. As long as he followed this poor excuse for a path, that would forever be a risk.

He got into engineering because he liked machines and computers, not because he wanted to work in a box with fluorescent lighting, but he was starting to wonder if those things weren’t mutually exclusive. But if he was on the wrong path, what path was he supposed to be on? And then what was the point of the last two, five, eight years? If he didn’t use his experience at this point, he would literally have to start from the bottom; would have to start climbing a new ladder. Was he seriously supposed to just find something else he wanted to do and start over? _Was there_ anything else he wanted to do?

He thought about Matsukawa, giving up whatever fleeting, secret plans he’d had so he could support his family. Matsukawa, who had never even been to college, and who now owned his own business. Matsukawa, who—

This time it’s a spike that hits him square in the face.

_Ah._

It’s like a dam bursting, disintegrating under the bitter waterfall of reality.

His stomach twists hotly.

_So this is what it feels like to burst your bubble._

Anger and something close to panic start writhing in his chest, digging their claws into the walls of his throat and climbing up into his mouth.

 _Matsukawa_ had skipped the ladder too. There was Takahiro, desperately clinging on with torn and bleeding fingertips as he climbed up rung after rung just so he could reach an end he couldn’t even see, while Matsukawa and Keiko and everyone else apparently took the fucking elevator and ended up exactly where they wanted to be. Without even breaking a sweat.

Because they had been lucky.

Because that was what it came down to: not hard work, or a good degree, or a pretty CV. No, it came down to _luck._

What was the point of even going to university? What was the point of working hard if it didn’t lead anywhere? What was the point in struggling through job after job after job, living pay check to pay check, only to grow old and decrepit and die alone?

Because at the end of the day, fortune does not favour the strong or the brave; fortune favours the _lucky_.

* * *

[Day 5]

"Have you moved today? Like, at all?"

Takahiro jumps at the sound. His laptop threatens to slide off his chest and he scrambles to hit pause on the movie playing, his ears ringing in the silence. He cranes his head back to look at the upside-down outline of Matsukawa as he drops his bag on a chair and makes his way into the dark living room, shrugging out of a suit jacket.

"Hey." Takahiro follows his movements with his eyes. When Matsukawa pulls the light switch and floods the room with white light, he cries out and throws an arm over his face, his shoulder popping with the sudden motion. "Argh, stop! I was relaxing, why are you doing this?!"

"You’re going to go blind if you stare at your screen in the dark like that," Matsukawa replies. He pushes Takahiro’s feet aside to sit on the other end of the couch. "Seriously, did you even get up today?"

"I’ve been doing research…"

"Oh yeah? On what?"

Takahiro lifts his arm to squint at Matsukawa. "My job."

"You don’t _have_ a job."

"My future job."

Matsukawa raises his eyebrows at him, unimpressed and unconvinced.

Takahiro spins the laptop on his chest and hits play. He hears the music and dialogue and waits, watching as Matsukawa leans forward to see the screen with one hand braced on the back of the couch, his brow creasing in vague recognition. After barely ten seconds, he leans back and shuts the laptop.

"Oi!"

"I hate to break it to you," he starts, one eyebrow quirked, "but watching _The Matrix_ isn’t going to help you with your future job."

"You don’t know that! I could find some mysterious buff dude who offers me a pill and opens my eyes to the realities of our delusional existence!"

"That does _not_ sound like something you should do."

Takahiro turns the computer back around and scoffs, "Says you who has literally had life handed to you on a silver platter."

He almost regrets it as soon as he says it. Almost.

He slides his computer high on his chest and opens it again so he can’t see Matsukawa on the other side of the screen.

He knows it’s just the residual anger from the previous night; the frustration, the jealousy. He had spent the day stewing, opening up what felt like thousands of job search sites only to close them with more violence than his ageing computer deserved. Because what was the point in even looking if he was only wasting his time? Was it so wrong of him to want a brief respite from life—to just sit and switch off his brain for a little bit?

It’s not as if Matsukawa, who by all accounts had zero actual problems to deal with, would be grievously inconvenienced by Takahiro’s mere presence. It’s not as if he had to always cook for him and look after him if he didn’t want to. It’s not as if he wasn't used to Takahiro crashing at his place every time he had to reboot his employment status, anyway.

And if Matsukawa _did_ have a problem but still insisted on keeping his complaints to himself, then that’s on him.

Takahiro knows he should calm down, because it’s not exactly Matsukawa’s fault that the world is twisted and unjust and people lie, but for once in his life he wants a break. For once in his damn life, he’d like for things to be easy; for every single choice he makes to not be a gamble that could backfire or haunt him years down the line. He’d like for his _best friend_ to actually be honest and straightforward with him, rather than keep passive-aggressively judging him.

"Do you really want to do this for the rest of your life?" The words are out before he can stop them. _Shit, shit, shit._ He clenches his jaw, inwardly cursing himself. Cursing Matsukawa. Cursing Keiko just a tiny bit. Trying to settle himself, he clicks blindly through his tabs, closing and opening them at random.

"What do you mean?"

"I _mean_ , do you _really_ want to spend your life working with _dead_ people?" He grits out the words, sharp and accusing, and he knows: he knows he’s being unfair. He _knows_. But it feels like all the words on his tongue are pulling taut against their restraints, and he only has so many hands.

"You seriously won’t have regrets like this? Letting your job—your life—just fall into your lap? Are you going to just let some woman and kids fall into your lap, too? Is that why you won’t even try to settle down, because you think it’ll just happen when the time is right?"

There’s a pause. A tense silence. For a delirious second, Takahiro thinks maybe he’s finally crossed a line, because—

"Why? Scared you’ll end up with no one to look after you?"

His restraint snaps.

Takahiro slams his laptop shut and hooks his feet against Matsukawa’s thigh roughly, pulling himself up to glare into his eyes. "I _don’t_ need you to look after me," he spits, seething. "I didn’t even fucking _ask_ you to do this."

Matsukawa just watches him calmly. "Maybe not. But you’re here, aren’t you?"

It’s scalding. Takahiro doesn’t think he’s seen Matsukawa look or sound this infuriatingly cool and controlled in a long time, but his eyes are _burning_ into Takahiro. It sends a shiver up his back as fury crackles in his mouth.

"What the fuck does that mean?"

"It means you’re here, letting me look after you—"

"I’m not _letting_ you do anything!"

"Well no one’s forcing you, are they?"

Takahiro can feel his eyebrow twitching and he watches as a nerve jumps in Matsukawa’s neck. Feels his own mirror it.

His voice is barely above a whisper when he says, "Tell me to leave if you don’t want me here."

"You _know_ that’s not it."

"Do I?"

They stare at each other, the air suffocatingly heavy. All Takahiro can see is Matsukawa, all he can hear is his pulse thrumming in his ears while his heart hammers in his chest, like a rabbit trying to escape. Faintly, he smells sweat and tobacco and incense.

And then Matsukawa exhales through pursed lips. He leans back and lifts Takahiro’s feet out of his lap, gently placing them on the couch as he stands. He suddenly sounds resigned when he speaks.

"I’m not going to force you to do anything you don’t want to; you’re a grown man. If you want to stay, then stay. If you want to go, go. But you know you’re always welcome here. For as long as you like, whether you _need_ it or not." And the words might be kind, but they slice right through Takahiro’s chest.

Matsukawa makes his way towards the kitchen. In the doorway, he pauses without turning back. "Do what you want, but I do all this because I care about you, Hiro, whether you ask me to or not. Because you’re my friend."

With that he shuts the door behind him, leaving Takahiro alone on the couch.

And Takahiro hates the way his stomach is roiling with bitter rage right now, because the fact is that he does know; he knows that Matsukawa doesn’t have to let him stay when he turns up uninvited; he knows that Matsukawa doesn’t have to cook food for the both of them; he knows that Matsukawa doesn’t have to cover for him with his family. He knows that Matsukawa doesn’t have to do a lot of things, but he does them simply because that’s what Matsukawa does for those he cares about: he gives.

And maybe that’s why Takahiro never asks—because he knows that if he asked for a hand, Matsukawa would give him an arm. If Takahiro called, Matsukawa would answer, quietly, and without expecting anything in return. He knows, because he’s known Matsukawa for years, and he’s watched him give and give and give for those he cares about. Because _that’s what Matsukawa does_. And he knows that Matsukawa saying yes would only make it that much harder for Takahiro to tell himself no.

Even now, years down the line, when they both have their own lives, Matsukawa is still the first one that Takahiro turns to; he’s still the person Takahiro trusts most in this world full of people that can’t be trusted. And neither of them has to say it, because they both know.

And maybe that’s why it pisses him off so much—because what is Takahiro supposed to do if the one person he trusts most in the world doesn’t trust him back?


	2. Chapter 2

_"So, you got some baggage rattling around in that big chest of yours?"_

_A laugh. Dry, like the wine in his hand. "You think I’d be here if I did?"_

_"Hmm, I don’t know. You’ve kind of got that trying-to-bury-your-past-look going on." A tug on his hair. Sharp, like the one on his heart. "Plus, you seem like the type to carry around a lot of loose change. Wouldn’t be surprised."_

_"Now that’s no way to seduce a guy."_

_A sly smirk. "But you’re still here, aren’t you?"_

[Day *]

For the first time in his life, Takahiro really isn’t sure what he’s doing or where he’s going. And this time, unlike every other time in the past, Matsukawa is only making him feel worse by throwing his miserable choices into stark, blinding contrast.

After their argument—which was really more of an unwarranted tantrum on Takahiro’s part if he was being mature about it—Takahiro couldn’t quell the confusing mix of anger and indignation that seemed to seep under every inch of his skin, choosing instead to shut himself in the living room and pointedly ignore Matsukawa for the rest of the evening.

However, when he wakes up to an empty apartment the next morning, it feels unbearably lonely.

He’s still full to bursting with frustration, both at Matsukawa and his stupid luck and his stupid secrets, and at the unfair reality that he has found himself in. He’s still lost over what to do next, still doesn’t know when he’s going to leave. But more than that, he’s just tired. He’s tired of thinking. He’s tired of feeling angry. He’s tired of fighting with Matsukawa.

So Takahiro sets about settling his issues the way he knows best: by packing them up in a box and pushing them to the back of his mind so he can ignore them until he’s forced to deal with them, kicking and screaming.

He hears the sound of the front door being wrenched open swiftly followed by Matsukawa’s strained voice, shouting over the din of the pop music blasting from the bluetooth speakers in the kitchen. "Hanamaki?"

In the living room, Takahiro turns up the volume, grunting through another set of push-ups. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Matsukawa stomp into the kitchen and drop a box on the table as he kills the power on the speakers. The music barely pauses before continuing to play through Takahiro's laptop, tinny and grating without the bass.

"Hanamaki, what the _hell_ are you doing?"

Takahiro glances up at him, but keeps going with the push-ups. "What…does it look…like I’m doing?"

" _What_?" Matsukawa leans over him, reaching for the computer and snatching it off the table to turn off the music. The silence rings in Takahiro’s ears.

Takahiro lets out an exasperated huff as he stops, sliding to his knees. "Excuse me, I was listening to that."

Matsukawa stares at him like he’s gone insane. Takahiro bites the inside of his cheeks. "Why the hell are you playing music and doing push-ups in the middle of the room?"

"You were the one who told me to move, and only psychos exercise in silence. Plus, I told you I’d beat you at arm wrestling," he mutters, lurching to his feet. Standing in front of Matsukawa now, he wrinkles his nose. "You _stink_ of cigarettes."

"Wh—I—why don’t you just use headphones like a normal human?"

"They hurt my ears." Takahiro can’t remember the last time he saw Matsukawa putting this much effort into containing himself. Not that he was doing very well.

"You’re bothering literally everyone in the building."

Takahiro crosses his arms. "How do you know?"

Matsukawa’s eyes grow even wider. Takahiro wishes he could photograph it. "I could hear it from outside the apartment," he says, barely controlling his voice. "I could hear it from the _street_!"

Takahiro shrugs and turns to walk away, lips pursed. " _I_ didn’t hear anyone complaining."

"You probably wouldn’t have been able to hear even if they _had_!" His voice cracks.

Takahiro makes a show of rolling his eyes as he grabs the clothes—a fresh set of Matsukawa’s tracksuits—he had set out on the end of the couch earlier. "Okay, well, my bad. You should probably keep your voice down though, if you don’t want to disturb the neighbours." He’s pretty sure he hears a vein burst. "Anyway, I’m gonna go shower now," he says without waiting to hear the next set of spluttered objections.

When Takahiro emerges from the shower, Matsukawa has somewhat calmed down, enough to wordlessly hand him a bowl of rice when he approaches the table. They eat in absurdly tense silence until Takahiro starts telling him about the stupid movies he watched while Matsukawa was at work, and Matsukawa listens impassively. After dinner, Matsukawa makes them both tea and then reluctantly pulls out a box of cream puffs from Takahiro’s favourite bakery.

Takahiro’s moan of delight when he bites into the first one seems to be the final straw, and Matsukawa cracks a smile.

The next evening, after another day spent sleeping and ignoring adult responsibilities, Takahiro doesn’t play any music. Instead, he sits quietly in the middle of Matsukawa’s bed, only the _click click click_ of the nail clippers to keep him company. He takes a break after the first foot to wait for Matsukawa to return.

He resumes his activities as soon as he hears the lock in the door.

"What are you—?!"

He glances up at Matsukawa’s enraged face and waves the nail clippers with an easy smile.

"Welcome back. You know, these little covers are really handy—"

"Out."

"—the way they stop the nail clippings—"

" _Hanamaki._ "

"Chill out, I’m nearly done—"

Matsukawa sends the loose clippings flying in his attempt to wrestle Takahiro off the bed and out of the room. For what feels like the first time in a long time, Takahiro _laughs_.

It's the end of the week, and Matsukawa is cooking in silence and alone—after he came home to find Takahiro watching a movie on his bed with his bare feet on the pillows and apparently decided that he was not acknowledging the behaviour that night—when Iwaizumi calls to say that he’s broken up with his girlfriend.

Takahiro is surprised to find that he _isn’t_ surprised by the news. He then thinks about the last time he spoke to Oikawa a few months ago; ever since Iwaizumi had moved to Tokyo, Oikawa called less.

"You know," Takahiro begins purposefully, half-watching Matsukawa do the dishes as he absentmindedly pokes through his work bag after dinner, "Oikawa still hasn’t been with anyone since he moved to Argentina."

Matsukawa hums, a mix of acknowledgement and mild curiosity.

Takahiro spots Matsukawa’s cigarettes in his bag. He grins to himself as he slips the box out, opening it and emptying the cigarettes into his pocket.

"Yeah. I mean, I’m pretty sure he picks up girls—and guys, probably—like pennies in the street, but…nothing solid, y’know?"

"Kind of like you, then."

There’s an instant, a second, where Takahiro feels like all his boxes have been abruptly wrenched out from the back of his mind and rudely tipped over, spilling their guts over the table for everyone to see.

Matsukawa wasn’t wrong. And it’s not like Takahiro ever hid the fact that he saw other people. In fact, ever since he got to Tokyo—ever since he left Miyagi—Takahiro had become even more shameless and gone out of his way to show that he, too, was living life to the fullest. That he, too, would have no regrets going forward.

But the statement still makes his heart shrivel up and start vibrating like a damn hummingbird.

Matsukawa keeps washing the dishes.

Takahiro’s chest is _full_ of hummingbirds.

Takahiro takes a deep breath and lets it out as quietly as possible.

"Yeah," he replies, clearing his throat. "I guess. Except, you know, I didn’t move halfway across the world and leave behind my other half. Plus, it would just be selfish of me to break so many hearts when I’m so desirable."

Matsukawa snorts and Takahiro relaxes a little bit more.

Matsukawa finishes washing the dishes and turns around, leaning against the sink. Takahiro is suddenly struck by how tired he looks.

"Hey, can you pass me my cigarettes?"

Takahiro nods slightly too eagerly as he pretends to search through Matsukawa’s bag, tidying the chaos in his mind as he goes. He pulls up the empty box after a moment and places it on the table. "Oh, seems like you’re out," he croons. "Better luck next time."

He then watches all the energy drain out of Matsukawa and feels a tiny stab of remorse. He had spent the whole week doing nothing but sleep and watch trash and think of ways to get a rise out of Matsukawa, and while years of friendship had given him the key to pushing exactly all of Matsukawa’s buttons, there was no point if Matsukawa wasn’t going to actually play along.

That said, he should stop smoking so much.

Matsukawa reaches for the packet and opens it, silently peering in at the empty box. He slots it shut and stares at the cover design.

Takahiro puts a hand in his pocket. His fingers wrap around a cigarette. He goes to open his mouth, to say something, but before he can, Matsukawa sighs.

"What _are_ you doing here, Hanamaki?"

"Huh?"

Takahiro feels like time has dilated, it takes that long for Matsukawa’s gaze to travel from the cardboard in his hand to Takahiro’s face. It takes so long, that by the time he gets there, Takahiro isn’t sure what expression he’s showing anymore.

Matsukawa considers him for a moment, eyes flicking back and forth across his face.

Takahiro swallows.

He looks so, so tired.

"I mean why are you here? What are you doing right now?"

Takahiro’s hand clenches around all the cigarettes in his pocket. At the back of his mind, the boxes he just finished stacking are threatening to tip right back over.

"You know, we’re not all Oikawa; you don’t have to find the most insane job out there. There’s no shame in doing something simple."

Takahiro’s lips feel glued together. They twitch, and his throat itches, but no sound comes out.

Matsukawa looks back to the packet of cigarettes then. "I’m not—I’m not telling you to leave. I just…"

Takahiro feels his jaw start to ache. Matsukawa flips open the lid of the box as he inhales shakily. Shuts it again. Looks at Takahiro.

"Don’t you have a life? In Tokyo?"

Takahiro swallows. Blinks. "Y-Yeah." He works his jaw, shakes his head once. "Yeah, obviously. Obviously I’ve got a life in Tokyo." Somehow, it sounds almost like a question. He stares at the table, eyebrows knitting together. He tries to ignore all his boxes looming over him. "I, uh—I just—um…"

Matsukawa could afford to say that because he had been lucky, but Takahiro had to work himself to the fucking bone for everything in life, and even then there would always be someone better—someone luckier. So what was the point in working himself to the bone for the wrong thing?

And how was he supposed to know what the wrong thing was?

"I’m just taking a break, you know. Just planning my next move." He pushes out a dry laugh, shifts in his seat, leans back with a faux confidence that he hopes doesn’t look as forced as it feels. "Don’t worry, I’ll be out of your hair soon enough. And someone’s gotta keep an eye on Iwaizumi."

The silence that follows is palpable. Takahiro can only sit and wait, focused on desperately holding up the tower of boxes in the shadows of his mind.

After another few seconds, Matsukawa pushes off the sink and tosses the empty packet onto the table with a sigh. "I’m going to go get some more cigarettes," he mutters. "You can shower first."

Takahiro’s hand is still wrapped around the cigarettes in his pocket when the door shuts behind Matsukawa. A long exhale shuddering past his lips, he pulls them out, watching as they roll across the table. A couple are bent, one dented.

_Damn it._

He reaches for the box, returns the cigarettes to their home, and goes to slip it into his own duffel bag where Matsukawa won’t find it. Then he showers and goes to bed before Matsukawa gets home.

* * *

[Morning]

Takahiro wakes up to find Matsukawa standing over him like the grim reaper.

"Jesus _fucking_ —" His heart rockets into his throat as his body goes through the entire fight-or-flight response before his brain has even switched on. "Matsukawa? What the _fuck_?"

"Get up," he says brusquely, already turning away. "We’re going to town."

"What?"

Matsukawa crouches down by Takahiro’s bag and starts rifling through it while Takahiro pulls himself upright, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. A shirt whaps him in the face, closely followed by his jeans.

"Get dressed."

" _Why_?" Takahiro shoves the clothes aside and squints around for his phone. He finds it wedged between the couch cushions. "It’s 9:30?" he groans. "Don’t you have work?"

"No one died last night," shouts Matsukawa from the kitchen. "Also it’s Saturday. Now get dressed; we’re going to go buy you some clothes."

"What? But I have clothes?" Matsukawa doesn’t answer. Takahiro feels like his brain may still be booting up, or maybe he’s dreaming. But after another moment, he grumbles and reluctantly shucks off Matsukawa’s tracksuits to pull on his own clothes.

Takahiro starts to regret his choices even more when he leaves the air conditioned apartment to step into the thick, humid heat and realises that the temperature went up in the time he hadn’t been outside. When he opens the car door and feels the waves of hot air roll out over the tarmac, he stops and shakes his head.

"What is it?" Matsukawa asks, exasperated, from the driver’s side.

Takahiro just watches the air shimmering above the black roof of the car. His shirt is already sticking to his back, his jeans and shoes stiflingly hot. He shakes his head again, lips turning down determinedly.

"No."

He can _hear_ Matsukawa roll his eyes. "I have air con in the car too, you know."

"No."

"It’ll take two minutes—"

"I refuse."

"Hana—"

"I’ll _die_." He looks up at Matsukawa’s unimpressed stare then and realises with horror that Matsukawa is wearing a _jacket_ over a _black_ shirt.

"This isn’t a car, it’s a fucking oven on wheels!" Takahiro practically shouts. To hell with public decency he thinks—maybe it’ll get him sent back to the apartment for a timeout. "I’ll actually die. Do you want that on your conscience? Do you? Do you want me to be your next funeral?"

Matsukawa seems to think about it, and for a single, blissful moment, Takahiro thinks he’s about to reconsider.

But then he huffs out a breath and slips into the car. A couple of second later, Takahiro hears the blast of the air vents.

Matsukawa’s face appears in the passenger seat as he leans over the central console, one hand reaching for the door handle. "Wait there, you overgrown princess." And then he shuts himself in like he wants _his_ funeral to be next.

Takahiro slips his phone out to stare at his social media while he waits, but he’s not really concentrating. Instead, he’s thinking about the fact that Matsukawa actually woke him up just to murder him in his black funeral car, it’s too hot, Matsukawa’s got a black funeral car because he owns his own funeral company despite having nothing but a high school diploma, it’s too hot, and Takahiro’s stood in a car park in Miyagi with no job and no prospects while Matsukawa cooks himself alive in his black funeral car.

_It’s too hot._

He considers just going back to the apartment until the door opens and deliciously frigid air seeps into his jeans.

"So what exactly are we doing today?"

Matsukawa doesn’t immediately answer, focused instead on backing into a parking space while Takahiro digs through his glovebox, in search of something to use as payback for dragging him outside. Under a mountain of receipts that he instantly scatters into the otherwise empty footwell, he finds a ring-bound notebook and pen, a packet of tissues, some masks, and a small bottle of hand sanitiser. He flips through the notebook but it’s disappointingly blank, so he grabs a whole bunch of receipts and starts going through them one by one.

"I told you," Matsukawa starts. He puts the car in park, then takes the notebook and wad of receipts from Takahiro’s hands—"Holy shit, you’re worse than a toddler, _stop_ that."—and roughly stuffs it all back into the glovebox before clicking the button to release Takahiro’s seatbelt. "We’re going to buy you some clothes."

"I _have_ clothes," mumbles Takahiro for the second time that morning, watching Matsukawa lean round to grab his jacket and wallet from the back seat.

"I know. But that’s your last clean shirt of the three— _three!_ —you brought with you"—he tugs sharply on Takahiro’s sleeve as he rights himself—"so unless you’re going back to Tokyo today, you’re going to need some more clothes. You can’t keep wearing mine forever."

All of a sudden, it occurs to him then that he’s already been there more than a week.

"I…"

Matsukawa looks at him and switches off the engine, leaving just the air conditioner running. "Look, I’m not telling you to decide now. I know I put you on the spot last night, and I’m sorry. I didn’t want to do that. I’m not trying to do that right now, either.

"I meant it, when I said you could stay as long as you like. I’m…" He stares out the windscreen, mouth twisting. "I really don't mind you staying. Seriously." Matsukawa glances back over at him, quiet and gentle and genuine, and Takahiro's chest squeezes.

Matsukawa takes a deep breath then. "But we’re still going to buy you some clothes now. Because whether you stay or not, you’re out of clean clothes."

Takahiro thinks about it. Thinks about the fact that, no matter how he phrases it, this is Matsukawa giving him the option to stay for longer; to stay in this temporary limbo that Matsukawa has given him within his life.

Did he want to stay?

"I can do washing," he mutters. He fiddles with the hem of his boring blue shirt. "I can—I could wash both our clothes…"

Matsukawa’s lips twitch. He switches off the air conditioning. "I’m sure, but clearly you’ve had a long list of other much more urgent engagements this week, and I figured we’d ease you back into adulthood."

Matsukawa holds his gaze. Takahiro swallows.

"Plus," Matsukawa continues, breaking eye contact to put a hand on the door, "I know you’ve been turning your underwear inside out. And that they have holes." He throws him a look caught halfway between disgust and pity, and it makes Takahiro’s face flush with enough warmth to rival the Japanese summer.

With a groan of acquiescence, he shoves open the car door.

* * *

[Morning]

The next day, Takahiro is woken up by Matsukawa again, although this time he’s in the kitchen, apparently on the phone and talking loudly while cooking. Takahiro sits up and stretches slowly. His muscles ache and his head is stuffed with a bad night’s sleep and a baby hangover, and he wonders if he should maybe consider finally parting with the couch if he’s now committed to staying here for the foreseeable short term. However long that may be.

"No, I’m serious: Every. Single. One." Matsukawa turns away from the hob when Takahiro enters the kitchen, the phone pressed between his ear and shoulder. "And here comes the man, the myth, the legend himself."

Takahiro yawns pointedly.

"You do _bee_ looking mighty fine this morning. Also, Iwaizumi says hi."

Takahiro scowls at his cheshire-cat grin. "If you ever make another joke that terrible again I’m ending our friendship and going straight back to Tokyo."

Matsukawa laughs. "That’s all it takes, huh?" His eyes unfocus as he listens to Iwaizumi on the other end of the line. "No, he’s dressed in black and yellow like an adorable little bee." Matsukawa’s eyes track absentmindedly over Takahiro as he throws up a middle finger, flopping into a chair. "An adorably grumpy bee, though."

Takahiro pillows his head on his arms and closes his eyes while Matsukawa goes back to cooking and talking. A tiny, minuscule part of him—the compassionate part, maybe—is glad that at least one of them got a decent night’s sleep after their impromptu shopping-turned-drinking-outing. Apparently, walking around all day was exhausting enough for Takahiro to pass out at the bar, but not enough for him to then pass out again once they got home and he was finally left alone with his thoughts.

Takahiro lifts his head and watches Matsukawa cook. He’s grinning like he doesn’t have a care in the world, chatting animatedly, his back wide and strong even under his new loose linen shirt. It was a shirt they had bought yesterday, after Takahiro had complained that Matsukawa didn’t own enough casual clothing.

It looks good on him.

_We should buy another next time._

The thought slips through, surprising him. For a second, Takahiro can’t hear what Matsukawa is saying anymore. For a second, his words are muffled, lost to the sound of cooking and Takahiro's blood rushing in his ears.

He’s quick to amend the thought.

_Next time I’m here._

He buries his head back in his arms. The smell of his new t-shirt fills his nose.

Some minutes later, a plate of steaming eggs and fried vegetables on toast is placed in front of him. He lifts his head and sniffs appreciatively.

Matsukawa puts two coffees on the table and takes a seat. "I was telling Iwaizumi how I literally had to drag you out to buy clothes because all you had was underwear with holes in it. He says you’re a disgrace to society."

Takahiro takes a bite of the eggs; they’re creamy and rich, just how he likes them. "That’s not strictly true, though, is it?" he mumbles around a full mouth.

"All your underwear _did_ have holes in it."

"Why you going through my dirty underwear anyway, Matsukawa? Got something you wanna share with the class?"

Matsukawa kicks him under the table without looking up. "Eat your food; Keiko’s got to go pick up Yusuke from the airport later so we’re going to babysit for a bit. And next time you come crawling here after walking out on your own job I’m not lending you any clothes or doing your washing for you."

_Next time._

Takahiro smirks despite himself. "That just sounds like even more of an excuse to go through my dirty underwear."

"Then you can wear rags for all I care."

"You know, that actually sounds pretty sexy."

"Screw you, Hanamaki."

"Again—"

Another kick under the table.

* * *

[Night]

Takahiro jumps when he catches movement in the corner of his eye and spots Matsukawa coming out of his room, face lit only by the screen of his phone. Matsukawa also seems to startle when he notices Takahiro curled up on the couch with his computer in his lap, but he quickly slips through the kitchen to the bathroom. Takahiro takes out one of his earphones and hits pause on his movie to listen to Matsukawa’s hushed words and soft footsteps, voice gentle despite the gravel of sleep.

"Okay, well could I speak with them? Okay, yeah, of course…" Takahiro watches him turn on the light in the bathroom before shutting the door quietly. His words become too muffled to make out, so Takahiro settles back and carries on with his movie.

When Matsukawa comes back a half hour later, Takahiro hasn’t moved.

"It’s the middle of night; why are you up?" Matsukawa groans, coming to sit on the end of the couch. He puts his head in his hands and Takahiro watches the outline of his shoulders in the weak light from the computer as they rise and fall with his every breath, almost bordering on sighs.

"Was that a…customer?"

Matsukawa nods into his hands. "It was a kid. His grandma just died."

"Shit, is he okay?"

Matsukawa sighs properly this time. "He was in shock. His parents were there, so I managed to speak to them, but he’s just really upset. They were preparing for this, just…not so soon." He breathes out a single chuckle that sounds broken and exhausted and makes Takahiro’s chest ache. "Ahhh, this is not one of my favourite things about this job."

"What, getting calls in the middle of the night?" He elbows Matsukawa gently. "Why don’t you just let whoever’s at the company deal with it?"

"I’m not about to palm off all the hard work on my employees just so I can sleep a few more hours."

"Why not? It’s what every other boss does," Takahiro mutters.

Matsukawa doesn’t answer. He stays quiet, his breathing slowing, and Takahiro almost starts to wonder if he’s dozed off until he whispers, "I mean seeing people’s first experience of death."

Takahiro feels his stomach twist unpleasantly with shame. Even if Matsukawa has always taken on far more than his fair share of emotional baggage when given the opportunity without ever batting an eyelid, when he’s so hellbent on keeping everything hidden from the world—from his friends—it’s easy to forget that he aches more often than not in the face of someone else’s pain.

When Takahiro doesn’t answer, Matsukawa turns his head in his hands and squints up at him through one eye, hair pushing through his fingers. "So what are you doing up at this fine hour?"

Debating; debating what he wants to do with his life; debating when he should go back to Tokyo; debating if he should leave the clothes they bought yesterday here or bring them with him; debating how he should pester Matsukawa so he stops smoking; debating how many more weekends he could take with Matsukawa and Keiko and Kazuma and Reina before he really did just give up and choose to become a NEET-cum-honorary-uncle.

"Nothing. Just watching a film." He swivels the laptop around to show _Yojimbo_ , an old samurai movie.

Matsukawa stares at the screen, the light making his face look more sunken than usual. "Is this why you sleep all day every day?"

"No," Takahiro mumbles. He avoids Matsukawa’s eyes as they slide back up to meet his. "I just like sleeping. Anyway, wanna watch? It’s almost over though."

Expecting him to decline and go back to bed, Takahiro stiffens slightly when Matsukawa straightens and shifts to sit next to him, leaning his head on the back of the couch. "Go on then."

Takahiro sits back and hits play.

It’s hard to concentrate, though, because all too soon Takahiro is drowning under the clean scent of Matsukawa’s shampoo and body wash mixed with the subtle undertones of sandalwood and greenery that are uniquely him. It’s the same familiar smell that pervades his car, his apartment, his clothes…but on Matsukawa himself, when he's right there, it’s so strong it almost makes Takahiro’s head spin. Makes him feel drunk. Even with the dialogue playing right in his ear, he can’t hear a thing.

"Hiro…"

"Hmm?" His heart leaps into his mouth.

"I can’t…"

Without lifting his head from the couch, Matsukawa reaches a hand round Takahiro’s face, fingers brushing his cheek lightly. Takahiro’s breath hitches.

Matsukawa’s fingers hook on the cord of his earphones.

"Fuck, sorry!" Flustered, embarrassing warmth flooding his cheeks, he scrambles to hit pause and unplug the earphones, but Matsukawa puts a hand over the jack.

"This is fine," he mumbles as he trails his fingers down to the other bud and pulls it to him. The wire stretches but doesn’t quite reach, so he shifts and slips his head off the couch onto Takahiro’s shoulder to put the earphone in. He repositions his head just a tiny bit, grabs the corner of the blanket covering Takahiro and drapes it over his own lap, then hits play on the movie himself. "This is fine," he repeats, softer, relaxing against Takahiro with a sigh.

The film is nearly over, the final fight wrapping up, but Takahiro can’t focus on anything except the weight of Matsukawa’s head on his shoulder and the smell of his skin washing over him.

His chest tightens painfully.

Ever since moving to Tokyo, Takahiro had always had a plan when he came to stay with Matsukawa. He had always known when he would leave.

_"I’ve got a couple days before I told my parents I'd be back."_

_"I’ve got a long weekend."_

_"I have an interview next week."_

But this time, he had failed to come up with a plan. Rather, he had completely and utterly lost sight of any vague suggestion of a plan he might have had before arriving, and now that he was here, unmoored in the safe comfort that Matsukawa always provided, he couldn’t bring himself to leave and look for a new plan; any plan he even started to consider just sounded so miserable and exhausting compared to simply staying in this little bubble that he knew he didn't have to leave just yet.

And he’s so tired and _done_ ; done with working mind-numbing desk jobs, done with putting one foot in front of the other just to live. He’s done with the constant pressure of following a path that he's not even sure he made the right call on anymore. He’s done pretending he doesn’t miss—

He’s done missing Matsukawa.

When he moved to Tokyo, Takahiro realised for the first time that he may have made a mistake: he realised, for the first time, that he may have overestimated himself. Or perhaps he had underestimated himself.

He had, without a doubt, underestimated his attachment to Matsukawa.

That realisation had hit him on an ordinary weekday afternoon in his first year, in the tiny science library on campus, sat across from someone whose vaguely familiar scent suddenly made it hard to breathe; and then again, every time he had let himself be engulfed by someone tall and wide and not quite right; every time he had responded to someone’s advances, despite the poorly hidden wall he kept around his heart, painted to look like an immovable part of the scenery.

However, after accepting that he was stuck in the reality that was having chosen to leave Miyagi, he had packed up his feelings into their own special box and pushed them to the back of his mind. They were, after all, just feelings, and he was well practiced at dealing with all his problems in that way. Because eventually, he knew, he would forget about the box, hidden as it was among all the other stacked up boxes of life.

He had overestimated, however, his ability to not pull out the box every time he saw Matsukawa again.

But he still had his plan; his plan that meant he had to go back to Tokyo. And Matsukawa had his plan too, which was to run the funeral home. They both had their plans, so no matter how many times Takahiro pulled the box out, he still refused to look inside and—somehow, miraculously—his feelings stayed packed up and hidden.

Now, for a split second, he lets himself really wonder what would have happened if he’d never left Miyagi in the first place.

In the very next instant, Takahiro watches as the box falls, tumbles forwards into the light, and bursts open. He watches, and he lets it happen. And he realises with excruciatingly blinding clarity exactly what he wants. 

He wants to be here when Matsukawa comes home; when he goes shopping; when he goes to visit Keiko and the kids. He wants to spend all his time pushing Matsukawa's buttons, old and new, and tell him to stop smoking, and watch the way his body moves under his clothes as he cooks. He wants to stay here, on Matsukawa’s couch, in his too large clothes, with Matsukawa leaning on him in the dead of night because he doesn’t want to admit that he is aching. He wants to have his scent all around him, all over him, so thoroughly doused in it that he himself should come to smell and taste like Matsukawa.

He wants Matsukawa to trust him, to tell him when he’s hurting, what he's thinking; to tell him what _he_ wants.

He wants to stay here, with Matsukawa.

He wants Matsukawa.

It’s sickening, the force with which his desires crash to the surface. How deeply they shake him, make him feel like turning to Matsukawa and instantly ruining everything he’s worked to cultivate and bury over the years. To grab him and pull him close and give in to what he wants right there and then.

But even as Takahiro feels sick how much he _wants_ , a tiny voice is echoing from within the pile of toppled boxes, and it won’t stop reminding him that he can’t have it—any of it—no matter how much he wants it.

Because Matsukawa has his own life; it's a life he chose, and he chose it long ago, and he chose it without Takahiro. And because Matsukawa has made it abundantly clear just how much he would still give for Takahiro, it would be the greatest betrayal to take advantage of that; to ruin this perfect bubble that Matsukawa has built with his quiet and selfless care.

All because Takahiro _wants_ him.

He doesn’t even realise the movie has ended, the screen gone dark, until Matsukawa’s weight shifts and he silently stands to return to his own room.

* * *

_His heart skipped a beat before he registered why._

_"Hey, is this seat free?"_

_Takahiro glanced up from his textbook. A guy was standing across the table, one hand on the back of a chair and the other holding a small stack of books. He stood out—tall, with bleach-blond hair hanging over a large forehead—but that wasn’t what made Takahiro stare._

_He smelled like Matsukawa._

_Or rather, he smelled like a half-arsed, counterfeit version of Matsukawa._

_Dropping his eyes back to his textbook, Takahiro nodded. "Sure."_

_He didn’t look up again even when the guy asked him a question—maybe something about what time the library closed—or when the guy asked if he could watch his stuff while he went to the bathroom. He just kept his eyes down, hoping his muttered replies were enough._

_When the guy came back, so did the smell of Matsukawa. Stronger this time._

_His heart skipped another beat._

Shit.

_"Hey," Takahiro started as they were packing up. The library closing music made it feel oddly surreal after the last few hours spent in silence save for the occasional sounds of coughing or pages turning. He waited for the guy to look up from his bag in open curiosity, a confused smile on his thin mouth._

_"You wanna grab a drink?"_

[Monday]

Matsukawa has already left for work by the time Takahiro wakes up. Hauling his tired body up and to the kitchen, he’s met with the sight of coffee waiting to be brewed, and a bowl of rice and some grilled fish, wrapped in cling film with a note on top.

_Eat._

His tongue feels like it will disintegrate if he tries to eat, so he turns around and returns to the couch. He considers pulling up the blanket and going back to sleep, but then thinks better of it. Instead, he reaches for his computer and opens up a job search site.

He stares at the blank search box for a long time, thinking. Waiting. Dreading. Numbly, he switches to social media. Then youtube. Back to social media.

He’s sick of this.

He growls and shuts the laptop and grabs his phone.

He thinks about calling Kuroo, but he's probably busy with preparations for the Olympics, so he doubts he'd answer. He considers Shiho or even Aya for all of two seconds, but doesn’t want to provoke the Hanamaki Inquisition. He entertains the idea of calling Iwaizumi before deciding that that’s its own can of worms that he isn’t equipped to deal with at the moment. Plus: Olympics.

He gets all the way to pulling up Oikawa’s contact card, thumb hovering over the call button, before he clicks out to the home screen. Talking to Oikawa of all people was only going to make him feel worse right now. And also: _Olympics_ , again.

He curses his lack of non-volleyball affiliated friends. And then corrects himself bitterly: non- _olympic_ friends.

For one, infinitesimally short second, he considers going and finding some poor, unsuccessful bastard to help him bury his feelings.

After another half an hour of staring into the void and watching time evanesce, he drags himself off the couch and finds himself in Matsukawa’s room.

It smells torturously like Matsukawa.

He crushes his fists into his eyes and lets out a groan that vibrates through his whole body, right down to his soul.

This is a waste of time. No matter how much self-pity he tries to drown himself in, he still knows how to swim. It’s a waste of his time and energy to even allow the thoughts to careen around his head like this.

Stood in the doorway to Matsukawa’s room, he starts building up a new box, bigger and better and reinforced with heartbreak-grade steel, and starts cramming all his stupid wants and feelings into it, where they belong. He watches as they trickle out pathetically through his fingers as fast as he can push them in.

After standing in the doorway long enough that his legs start to go numb, he turns. He’s about to leave the room when he spots a white corner of paper sticking out from under one of the drawers beneath the bed. He stoops to pick it up, wondering weakly how exactly Matsukawa has so many receipts hidden away everywhere when—

He frowns.

It’s an envelope.

He flips it over.

_Hanamaki Takahiro_

He frowns some more.

It’s an envelope addressed to him.

Thinking this is some elaborate—or terribly executed—joke, he opens the flap and slides out a single sheet of paper folded in two. It’s crumpled, torn from a notebook, with only a single line written across the top.

_I wish I could ask you to stay_

He turns the sheet over, checks in the envelope again, but that that’s it. There’s nothing else.

He slides the paper back into the envelope and stares at it; stares at the shape of his name in what is undoubtedly Matsukawa’s smooth, elegant handwriting. Something is growing in Takahiro’s chest, confusingly mingled in with all the emotions already running amok inside him.

This must be a joke.

He drops the envelope on top of the bed and kneels down to peer under the drawer where he found it, but there’s nothing there. Straightening up, he shuffles back and pulls out the drawer, but it’s just filled with socks and underwear and—

There’s a dark grey box tucked right into the back corner. Pulling the drawer out as far as it will go, Takahiro reaches for it, messily extricating what looks like an old shoebox from between the socks and underwear. He sets it on the bed and opens it.

"What the fuck?"

The box is full of envelopes. _Full_ of them. Mostly white, some manila, all more or less the same size. He leafs through them quickly.

And they’re all addressed to him.

"What the _fuck_?"

He’s suddenly aware that his mouth is dry and it's like he’s got an infestation of hummingbirds in his chest again, except this time they feel more like woodpeckers.

He takes out a handful of envelopes; none of them are sealed, the flaps only tucked in. He opens one at random.

It’s two sheets of plain white paper, with writing on both sides.

_I went to meet Reina today. She’s so small, I was honestly terrified I might—_

Takahiro frowns. Reina? He turns the letter—because that’s what it is, he realises—in his hand, looking for a date. He can’t find one, but if Matsukawa wrote this after Reina was born, it can’t be much more than a couple months old, if that.

He skims over the rest of the contents.

_—she’s seriously adorable, you’re going to love her—_

_—Aya-chan’s been over more too, helping Keiko—_

_—Yusuke is going to be away next month—_

Takahiro drops the letter on the floor and picks up another envelope, hands starting to shake. This one is another page of lined letter paper.

_We had a woman come in for her husband’s funeral today—_

_—I hate this. It’s 3 AM and all I can hear is her crying—_

The next envelope reveals a single sheet of plain blue paper with a poem in the middle.

 _The rain at the end of April  
_ _makes me think of you  
_ _as I watch the cherry blossoms fall  
_ _and disappear from view_

He reaches for an envelope from the back of the box, pulling out a manila one. It’s thin, holding just a couple sheets that look like they’re from a hotel memo pad.

_Hiro, one day I’m going to bring you to a funeral convention, because they’re surreal and bizarre and I think you’d—_

His hand falls, and he lets all the paper flutter to the ground.

He picks up a worn envelope from the very middle. The flap on this one is torn, the single sheet of paper inside even more crumpled than the first letter. Also like the first letter, it has a single sentence.

_I miss you._

His stomach churns in time with the thrumming in his chest.

Takahiro stares at the box, trying to breathe, his mind struggling to process what was happening—what he was seeing. The box is completely full of envelopes. He doesn't even want to begin to try counting them.

This is the worst joke Matsukawa has ever made.

He pulls the box onto his lap and starts to rifle through the envelopes. He finds one which looks worn, the white paper yellowed, the handwriting on the front just a touch messier than the others. He slides it out and opens the flap and pulls out a single page, stamped at the top with Matsukawa’s own company logo.

_It’s lonely without you—_

Again, this one has no date, but it must be old; the handwriting is nostalgic, like looking at Matsukawa's scrawled notes from high school.

_—I wonder how different things might have been if you had stayed—_

_—I wish I’d told you how I feel before you left—_

Something in his chest finally bursts and paints the world red.

He looks up, then around at the envelopes scattered on the floor, gutted of their contents. The box in his lap is still bursting with unopened envelopes.

Takahiro looks back to the sheet of paper in his hand, crumpled in his grip.

 _Was_ this a joke?

There was no way. Even Matsukawa wouldn’t go this far for a joke.

And yet, Takahiro couldn’t come up with a single half-decent explanation for why Matsukawa had done this. What was he thinking? What the fuck was this? What the actual ever-living fuck was this?

He thinks, absurdly, that Takahiro’s image of Matsukawa must just be way off the mark, because he keeps coming to these earth-shattering realisations about the person he had thought was his best friend.

But then he remembers his own bottomless collection of secret desires he had kept from his best friend; thoughts that he had packed up inside a box and hidden away in the depths of his mind where no one but him would find them.

Really, how was this any different?

Takahiro’s jaw aches. His hand is cramping and his head is swimming. He realises he isn’t breathing properly, his lungs spasming against his ribs right next to his heart trying to drill a hole in his chest.

He drops the letter. He shoots to his feet, the box falling, the letters tipping out all over the floor.

Takahiro stumbles out of the bedroom and into the living room, crashing to his knees near his bag.

He tries to breathe, hands fisting in his clothes.

In through his nose, out through his mouth.

He closes his eyes against the red bleeding into his world. His hands are still cramping.

In through his nose. Out through his mouth.

When he opens his eyes, he’s stuffed his clothes into his bag.

He zips up the bag roughly and stands, dragging it with him into the bedroom. He stares down at the pile of paper, letters and envelopes strewn all over the floor like spilled ashes.

His eyes land on the envelope that had first caught his attention as it poked one innocent corner out from under the drawers, now sitting peacefully on top of the bed above its fallen comrades. Oblivious to the chaos it had unleashed.

Takahiro’s eyes trace over the shape of his name and he reaches for it.


	3. Chapter 3

✑

The first thing Issei notices when he opens the door is the lack of shoes in the dark entryway. He braces himself against the wall as he slips off his own shoes, frowning.

The next thing he notices is the unusually warm silence.

"Hiro?" he calls out, making his way into the apartment. It’s dim, the light of the setting sun struggling to do much except douse the space in an orange hue. Issei turns on the lights in the kitchen, setting down the bakery box and his bag. The food he left on the table that morning is still there, untouched.

He pads into the living room and looks around, but it’s empty. Hanamaki’s bag is gone from the corner, his laptop nowhere to be seen, the thin blanket he sleeps under in a crumpled heap on the couch with Issei’s tracksuits. There are no socks or shirts in the laundry hamper, no pairs of holed underwear. No newly bought clothes.

No Hanamaki.

Feeling increasingly uneasy, Issei pulls out his phone, but there are no new messages. He brings up Hanamaki’s contact card and calls.

He waits.

It goes to voicemail.

He ends the call and tries Keiko.

_"Hello?"_

"Hey, it’s me," he says, trying not to sound like a weight is pressing the air from his lungs. "Um, I was wondering if Hanamaki is with you?"

 _"What? Hiro-kun?"_ Keiko giggles, like she thinks he’s messing with her. _"No, of course not. Why?"_

Issei purses his lips, glancing around at the deserted living room again. "I don’t know, he’s not here…"

 _"Maybe he’s gone to see his parents?"_ There’s a wail in the background. _"Ah—sorry, that’s Reina, I have to go. I haven’t seen him, but if I do I’ll let you know."_

Issei hums, "Yeah, okay, thanks. Bye."

He goes to call Aya, but then thinks it’s probably too soon for that and would only make things worse for Hanamaki.

He redials Hanamaki, his chest uncomfortably tight. He’s regretting his decision to not have a cigarette after work now.

This time, the call connects.

 _"Hello?"_ Hanamaki sounds exhausted and bored out of his mind.

"Hey, Hanamaki?" He can't help the relief that leaks into his voice. "Um…where are you?" It comes out with a nervous laugh.

Hanamaki doesn’t answer immediately.

_"Somewhere in Tochigi."_

"As in…" Issei feels his stomach drop as he tries to process that. "…prefecture?"

_"Yeah."_

"Wh—" He frowns. "What do you mean?"

He waits for Hanamaki’s response, which again takes just slightly too long.

 _"I mean,"_ he starts, voice slow and measured, _"I’m on a bus, on a road, somewhere in Tochigi prefecture."_

Issei wracks his brain. "Like…on the bus…to _Tokyo_?"

 _"Yes,"_ Hanamaki sighs. Exasperated.

"Oh…" Issei pushes back against the complicated swell of emotions in his chest. "Did you, um…" He swallows, clears his throat. Tries to sound casual when he asks, "Did you find a job, or something?"

The silence stretches.

_"Not yet. I’m gonna keep looking in Tokyo."_

"Oh. Uh, okay, yeah." He eyes the box of cream puffs on the table and rubs at his face, breathing out a quiet sigh. "Okay, yeah, sure. Well, um, see you soon…I guess."

_"Yeah. See you."_

Hanamaki hangs up.

Issei wakes up the next day to an empty living room and a full box of cream puffs in his fridge. The morning after that, the house is still empty and the cream puffs are still there.

He’s not sure what would be worse: having to sit and eat the cream puffs he bought for Hanamaki on his own like some heart-broken teenager, or having to feel the guilt of throwing away Hanamaki’s favourite cream puffs like some heart-broken teenager. 

When he gets home from work that evening and sees them sitting in the fridge like they plan to move in, he sighs and takes them to Keiko’s.

"You mean he went back to Tokyo without saying anything?"

Issei nods absentmindedly, eyes fixed on Reina in his lap as she burbles happily, shaking a toy with far more energy than a baby her size should have.

"Did something happen?"

Issei shakes his head. "No. I mean, maybe _,_ last week, but…" Reina’s big eyes land on him, and he smiles weakly. "I thought that was fine now."

Keiko hums, taking another bite of cream puff. "Maybe he just got bored of being here."

Issei’s smile falters. He hums back, "Maybe."

But that doesn’t sit right with him.

Issei had known Hanamaki for years. On the day they met, he had known in an instant that he never wanted to be friends with anyone as much as with the boy with shockingly pink hair yawning shamelessly across from him in the gym at the moment. A few months later, after being blindsided by a shockingly bright smile as he was physically dragged to volleyball practice, he had known that he wanted to spend every single second from then on learning what other expressions hid underneath that perpetually bored expression. About a year after that, he had known that he would never again meet someone so cosmically suited to him as the boy leaning against the back of the gym with an easy grin, oblivious to the envelope burning a hole in Issei’s pocket.

A few more seconds and a hastily aborted confession later, he had also known that he was doomed to live the rest of his life burying his feelings for his best friend.

Issei had known Hanamaki for years, and while that time had often brought on heartache so strong that it made him wish he could call up all those great authors and poets they studied in school and have a chat, it also meant that he _knew_ Hanamaki—he could read his sly smiles and shifty eyes and sharp grins like he could somehow read the chicken scratch that Hanamaki used to call writing.

So Issei knew that Hanamaki had always been someone that marched to the beat of his own drum, and that he did _march_ —he didn’t half-arse things. There was a reason he had been the dependable all-rounder of their team back in high school; there was a reason he continued to learn and work hard at every single job he took on; there was a reason he had moved to Tokyo despite the chorus of criticisms from his family.

And it was precisely because Issei knew him that he had been uneasy ever since Hanamaki had turned up at his apartment after walking out on his job with no warning a couple weeks ago.

It wasn’t the lack of warning—it was the fact that something had felt decidedly half-arsed about the whole thing. And that sense of unease had only grown as the week progressed and he watched Hanamaki show zero inclination towards actually looking for another job, because again, something about his behaviour had seemed half-arsed.

He didn’t care if Hanamaki wanted to crash at his place and dedicate himself to finding new ways to irritate Issei for the foreseeable future—although he did wish he would at least eat some food so he didn’t waste away—but he did care that Hanamaki suddenly seemed tired and lost in a way that Issei hadn’t seen before; like he couldn’t find a beat to follow anymore.

But whether he was relaxed or happy or angry, or even when put on the spot, Hanamaki hadn’t opened up about whatever it was that was bothering him. And Issei wasn’t about to force him into talking, so there was little else that he could do but simply be there.

Now that Hanamaki had suddenly left again without so much as a text, Issei couldn’t shake the feeling that something was seriously wrong. Even if Hanamaki insisted that nothing had happened, _something must have happened._ Because why else would he turn up, hibernate for a couple weeks, and then go back with as little warning as he had turned up with?

Issei was no stranger to the dark places people went when they felt lost, but if Hanamaki didn’t want to talk to him, what was he supposed to do?

There’s a crash in the kitchen and Issei jerks back to reality. Keiko immediately leaves to see what mess Kazuma has made, and Issei just looks down to see Reina staring up at him with those unnecessarily big eyes of hers.

"Wouldn’t it be nice if life were a little easier, huh?"

When Issei pulls into his parking space later that night, he switches off the engine and sits back for a second to let the confusing jumble of thoughts and worries flow through his mind. He stares out the windshield, gripping the steering wheel with both hands as he considers picking up the phone and just calling Hanamaki outright.

_Why did you leave? What happened? Talk to me._

He chews on his lip as he plays out the conversation in his head, wondering what would be worse: if Hanamaki laughed, got angry, or just hung up. Somehow, he can’t imagine him honestly opening up.

After another while lost in his own mind, he leans over to open the glovebox and pulls out his notebook to try and iron out the growing ache in his chest.

_Why did you leave? Something happened, didn’t it? Why won’t you tell me? Let me help you—_

He taps his pen against the paper idly, frowning.

~~_I miss you_ ~~

Feeling blocked, he turns the page and starts writing on the other side.

_Once there was a boy. He met another boy. That boy was the brightest, most radiant thing he had ever seen, and he decided in a heartbeat that he would do anything if it meant he could watch that boy shine forever._

_But one day, the boy appeared before him a shadow of his usual self. He was quiet and weak and dull, and the boy’s heart ached because he didn’t know how to help this boy shine again. He reached out clumsily, inquiringly, but the boy only pushed him away and carried on alone, his shadow leaking into his surroundings._

Issei sits back with a sigh, scrubbing a hand through his hair. He runs his eyes over the words before ripping the page from the notebook and folding it in half.

In the apartment, he heads straight to his bedroom to fish out an envelope from his bedside table. He slides the single page in and tucks the flap closed, flips the envelope over to write _Hanamaki Takahiro_ on the front, then reaches down to slide open the drawer under the bed. He does everything with smooth, practiced ease, barely even thinking after years of carrying out these same actions in this same order, time and time again.

It’s only when he picks up the box where he keeps his letters that he falters.

It feels…light.

Something clutches at his heart.

The box catches in his haste to pull it out, sending a couple of sock bundles flying into the room. He places it on the bed and stares at it.

He opens the lid.

The _something_ around his heart reveals itself to be pure, unadulterated dread.

Because the box is empty.

A strangled sound slips past his lips.

No—

It’s not empty. There’s a single sheet of paper in the middle of the box, folded in half.

Issei’s stomach has dropped out of his body. His blood rushing in his ears so violently it’s making his vision sway. He reaches a single, shaking hand into the box and picks out the paper with his own writing; a single sentence that he had written barely a few days ago, in the middle of the night, momentarily overcome by the warmth and presence of the single person he wanted most in this world but could never have.

_I wish I could ask you to stay_

A shadow is bleeding through from the other side. He unfolds it and sees a single word spread across the lines. Terrifyingly, painfully familiar.

_Ask_

He blinks, turns the paper over, but that’s it. There’s nothing else.

_Ask_

He swallows thickly. Gasps and feels his head clear slightly. 

Ask _what_?

He looks at the freshly closed envelope sitting on the bed, the black of Hanamaki’s name sharp against the white of the paper.

"… _Fuck_."

The buzzer blares through the door of the apartment, high pitched and grating even in the 3 AM clamour of the city. Issei waits a moment, listening for some sign of movement from within. Somewhere, he hears loud, cackling laughter. When the cars rushing by are once again the only sound around, he presses his finger to the doorbell a second time, leaning close to the worn metal surface of the door to listen for signs of life.

There’s another burst of laughter, seemingly from the other side of the door, followed by a creak and the muffled stomping of feet—

The door opens and immediately jolts, snapping against its chain. Issei jumps back as his heart leaps into his mouth and half of Hanamaki’s face appears in the narrow space.

He looks tired, pissed, and so _Hanamaki_ that Issei feels his hand itch with the urge to reach for him through the gap.

"Hana—"

The door slams shut.

The shock is almost as loud as the door itself. But then again, he’s not sure he should even be surprised.

"Hanamaki? Can you open the door? Please?"

Silence.

Issei stands there, unsure what to do, his mind as chaotic as his heartbeat. He’s about to call out again when he hears the sound of the chain being slid free. The door swings open a moment later.

Hanamaki stares at him from the doorway, jaw clenched out and one hand gripping the door handle. He’s dressed in tracksuits that Issei has never seen before and a rumpled t-shirt that makes his collarbones stand out far too much. He realises then that it must be years since the last—and only—time Issei came to Tokyo. It’s a miracle he even remembered where Hanamaki lives, or that he even still lives in the same place.

Hanamaki gives the door a push, letting it swing freely as he spins on his heel and silently heads back down the corridor. Issei grabs the door before it shuts and steps into the entrance hesitantly, and after easing the door shut behind him, he turns around to see that Hanamaki has already disappeared round the corner.

Issei rubs his hands on his trousers nervously. Taking a deep breath and immediately recognising with an ache the scent that his own couch had taken on recently, he slips off his shoes and makes his way through to the apartment, words ready on his tongue as he turns the corner.

"Hanamaki, I—"

"Well, well, well."

Issei does a double-take as he comes face to face with a huge guy blocking his way. He’s breathing alcoholic fumes straight into Issei’s mouth, his smirk stretching wide under hooded eyes and a nest of hair that sticks almost straight up. In fact, his hair might be the only reason he looks so huge in the first place.

The stranger’s smirk grows sharper as he registers Issei’s confusion. Clearly, he’s aware of the image he projects. "What’s the matter?” He drawls. “Cat got your tongue?"

But Issei is definitely taller. And wider. He could take this bastard.

"Piss off already, dickhead," Hanamaki says then from his position by the kitchen sink. He’s staring down at his hands, examining his fingertips. For a heart-stopping second, Issei thinks he’s talking to him.

Without looking away from Issei, the stranger tilts his head over his shoulder in Hanamaki’s direction. "Aw, but I wanna hear what Shakespeare-kun has to say for himself."

Issei’s clenches his fists, dread clawing at his belly.

Well that answers one question.

He leans around the stranger. "Hanamaki, just let me explain."

Hanamaki only sniffs and picks at his nails, lips pressed together in a small pout. A nerve twitches in his jaw.

The man in front of him lets out a dramatic sigh, dousing Issei in the smell of beer. "Alright, alright, I’ll leave you two to it." He steps around Issei, brushing roughly against his shoulder as he makes his way to the entrance. There’s the creaking sound of the door hinges followed by a loud purr: "My door is always open if you want a shoulder to cry on, Hana-kun."

Then the door closes and once again, they are alone.

After what feels like an eternity of the most awkward silence Issei has ever experienced in his almost ten years of knowing him, Hanamaki pushes off the kitchen sink and takes a seat on top of the low table in the centre of the room. He crosses his arms and fixes Issei with any icy stare that sends shivers up his back. There’s a small collection of cans behind him, but Hanamaki _seems_ sober. At least, sober enough that he can glare convincingly.

Issei swallows, his mouth dry.

"Why are you still up?" he asks, his voice unnaturally casual. And then, because he hadn’t managed to string the thought together earlier: "Who was that?"

Hanamaki raises a single eyebrow at him.

When it becomes apparent after another half a minute that Hanamaki isn’t going to reply, Issei shifts and clears his throat, his stomach twisting anxiously.

"You, um…" He runs a hand through his hair, staring blindly at the far wall behind Hanamaki. "You found… the…" He waves a hand vaguely.

"The hundreds of letters all with my name on them?" Issei shuts his eyes. "Yep."

He takes a deep breath and opens his eyes to meet Hanamaki’s piercing gaze, his chest tightening at the dark expression clouding his features. "Just let me explain. It’s not what it looks like—"

"Oh really?" Hanamaki’s expression shifts so violently that Issei almost gets whiplash. "So you’re telling me," Hanamaki continues, voice too high and too sweet, "that I _didn’t_ find an obscene number of envelopes hidden inside a shoebox under your bed? Or are you saying that they were all addressed to a _different_ Hanamaki Takahiro? Or maybe—"

"No," Issei interrupts him, shaking his head.

"No _what_?" Hanamaki snaps back sharply.

Issei swallows.

"No they weren’t for me?"

He shakes his head again.

"No I’m wrong?"

"No, that’s—"

"No it’s _exactly_ what it looks like?"

"They’re—" His voice cracks. "It’s—"

It’s like the first day he saw a dead body, Issei thinks, beautifully dressed and so peaceful that it looked like it might get up and start walking at any second; like the first day someone had thrown all their rage at him after losing their child, because there was nowhere else to point their grief; like the first day he had cremated a body that no one came to see off; like the first day he realised that everyone goes through life comparing their happiness and success to that of those around them without it making even an ounce of difference to their reality.

He realised over time that it didn’t matter what kind of life people lived: some people try hard, and a few don’t try at all; some people are honest to a fault, and many lie at every turn; some people run towards life, and others run away; some people are lucky enough to be happy, and some are miserable.

At the end of the day, everyone dies just the same.

"Matsukawa?"

Issei swallows, but his throat feels like sandpaper and his chest is so tight he can barely breathe.

Everyone dies just the same, but just as not all lives are lived equally, nor are all deaths died equally.

" _Issei_?"

He comes back to focus on Hanamaki; on his voice, low and sharp and strained; on his mouth, quivering with how tightly his jaw is clenched. On his eyes, burning.

For one dizzying moment, Issei wonders what would be worse: to die here and now with Hanamaki looking at him like this, or to die one day painfully far into the future without ever seeing Hanamaki’s face again.

"Issei, what the _fuck_ are they?"

Issei thinks of the last time he saw Hanamaki anywhere near this angry, when they overheard some guys talking shit about Oikawa and Iwaizumi back in high school. He remembers having to pull Hanamaki off them at the time.

That was nothing compared to how terrifyingly furious he looks right now.

"They’re letters," he says, but it comes out like a hoarse whisper that doesn’t sound like his own voice. He clears his throat, and tries again, louder, "They’re letters that I wrote. And addressed to you."

"Okay," Hanamaki says slowly, dangerously. "So explain to me how that isn’t what it looks like."

Oh, God. He thinks he might throw up.

Issei tries to take a deep breath, but it’s like his lungs have shrivelled up and dried out, and he can barely get enough oxygen to fuel the fear coursing through his body. He swallows, his heart jolting like he’s shooting down the drop on a rollercoaster with every pathetic inhale.

He tries to recall some semblance of the frail web of reasoning he had spun for himself in the car.

He didn’t know how many of the letters Hanamaki had read, but he had to assume that Hanamaki _knew_ , even if only from the single letter he had left behind; anyone with half a brain cell could figure out what that letter had meant. And why else would he leave without saying anything? Why else would he be this angry?

So Issei has two options: he could tell the truth and hope that Hanamaki didn’t walk out of his life forever, or he could lie and hope that Hanamaki believed him and never found out the truth and walked out of his life forever. After all, Issei had kept his feelings hidden this long—if keeping Hanamaki as his best friend meant committing to burying his feelings for good, then he could do that. He would rather live a lie until death than lose Hanamaki.

But a part of him knew— _you can’t know the future_ , he had argued in the car—a part of him knew that he lacked the conviction to bury his feelings forever. Ever since Hanamaki had moved to Tokyo, it had become embarrassingly transparent just how much power Hanamaki had over him every time he came to stay; every time he came to visit and filled Issei’s home with the sound of his voice, infused his belongings with his familiar smell, occupied his every single thought with his blindingly bright presence…

And that same part of him also knew that he could never lie to Hanamaki. Not now. Not anymore.

So really, Issei only had one option.

Hanamaki is still staring at him, waiting.

But how does he explain the truth without Hanamaki walking out of his life anyway?

How does he explain that he’s been writing letters he never planned to send for the last God knows how many years?

How does he explain that he planned to take this secret to the grave because that’s how much he cared for him?

How does he explain that he has been in love with his best friend practically since the day they met?

Issei inhales shakily.

"Iwantedtowrite."

The words come out in a rush, tripping over themselves before Issei has a chance to really think about them, and they’re _not_ the words Issei was expecting. "I wanted to write," he says again, almost as if to double-check himself. As if to check that he isn’t currently having a stroke.

Hanamaki’s eyebrows twitch and Issei knows that he didn’t expect those words either.

"I wanted to write," he repeats, steadier, somehow. Somewhere, a part of him wants to laugh at how ridiculous he sounds. "When—before—in high school."

" _What_?" Hanamaki is incredulous, is looking at him like he’s insane. Maybe he is.

"I wanted—"

" _Don’t_ say it again."

Issei’s mouth snaps closed.

Hanamaki screws his eyes shut—screws his whole face up—and presses his fists against his forehead as he takes a deep breath in. He holds it.

When he lets it out in a huge rush of air, Issei feels dizzy with how much air escapes his own lungs.

Hanamaki opens his eyes to look at Issei again, his features calmer, the anger that was bursting out of him before only a violent simmer under the surface now.

"You wanted to write?" he asks, disbelieving, as if he can’t quite believe he’s saying it himself.

Issei nods stiltedly.

" _Letters_?"

Issei licks his lips. "Words." Hanamaki’s eyebrows twitch again. "Like, letters and stories, too. Just…words." And his chest is tight again, his fingers bizarrely numb.

Because even though he’s never said it before, and even though it isn’t the whole truth, it isn’t a lie, right?

Because there is a reason Issei has been writing letters for the last nine—ten?—years.

He’s about to go on—to explain, somehow, the inexplicable pull he felt even before he started writing to Hanamaki—when Hanamaki’s expression shifts. His mouth and shoulders drop just a fraction and Issei stops, the words falling off his tongue as he watches understanding dawn in Hanamaki’s eyes.

He isn’t sure if that’s more or less terrifying.

"What?" he croaks out.

Hanamaki’s head tilts just slightly. "You wanted to write in high school?" Issei feels himself nod. "After high school?"

He frowns. "Y-yeah…"

Hanamaki nods—more of a full body rock, really—his eyes studying Issei’s face. There’s still anger in them, but at least it’s not burning Issei from across the room anymore. "Well that explains a lot."

"Does it?" _Does it?_

Hanamaki rocks for a few more seconds before he stops abruptly. Issei’s own pulse stutters in time.

"So what about the letters, then?"

Issei works his jaw. His heart is a storm crashing against his ribs. He can fix this, he thinks. He could still fix this. "They came later, and they became kind of like practice, or something—"

"No," Hanamaki cuts him off, his eyes hardening again. "No, I mean…"

Issei watches something flash in his gaze and feels his heart ride up into his mouth.

"I mean what you wrote," Hanamaki says, his eyebrows pulling together. "What you wrote in the letters." And Issei thinks he may hear the faintest quiver in Hanamaki’s voice when he finishes, "Did you mean it?"

He feels his blood desert his body.

He stays silent, because he doesn’t trust himself to open his own mouth anymore. He doesn’t even know what Hanamaki has read, but that doesn’t matter, because he knows. They both do.

There’s no amount of sidestepping that Issei can do now, because even if Issei dresses up his words to hide the larger, uglier truth, Hanamaki will know. Because just as Issei has known Hanamaki for years and can read his every twitch and tell, so has Hanamaki known Issei for years.

Hanamaki waits.

Issei remembers then the feeling of that warm, sticky summer’s day, years ago, when he had stood with shaking hands before his best friend behind the gym, words budding on the very tip of his tongue. He remembers the terror that had coursed through his body—the terror that had clouded his mind and climbed out of his mouth as he swallowed his feelings back down his throat. He remembers the bitterness as he wondered how different things might have been if he had never let his feelings put down roots in the first place.

He remembers thinking for the first time, what would be worse: to have Hanamaki accept his feelings out of pity, or reject him out of disgust?

Sickeningly, Issei realises that he’s about to find out.

"Yes."

It’s quiet. Barely a whisper.

He wouldn’t be surprised if Hanamaki could hear his heart rampaging in his chest.

"Yes," he says again, and it’s like he’s listening from outside his own body. "Everything—" And Hanamaki still isn’t saying anything, his whole body frozen stiff, and it’s deathly quiet, and there is nothing more for Issei to ruin now, so he says, with his heart cracking under the weight of his words, "I meant everything."

And Hanamaki is staring at him, his lips pressed together, his hands gripping his elbows, his eyes dark and angry and betrayed.

And Issei feels his heart shatter.

Hanamaki closes his eyes for an unbearably long time. When he opens them, he’s staring at the floor. Issei watches as he stands, slowly, and then takes one, two, three steps towards Issei.

Hanamaki stops in front of him and drops his arms to his side. Then he raises his hands up towards Issei’s chest, and Issei can feel his breath catching in his throat even as his heart tries to shred the rest of his organs into tiny pieces.

Hanamaki’s hands curl around the open collar of Issei’s shirt, his knuckles warm through the thin fabric, and Issei just stares at Hanamaki’s quivering jaw, at his downturned eyes that won’t meet Issei’s gaze.

Then Hanamaki’s eyes cut up to his and he yanks him forward, Issei’s breath wrenching free from his chest with a gasp. Instinctively, he leans his head back, but Hanamaki pulls him closer until their noses are practically touching.

"You’re a fucking _bastard_ , Matsukawa," he spits, lips curled back over clenched teeth.

Issei licks his lips, his hands coming up to rest on Hanamaki’s wrists. "Hanamaki, listen—"

"No, shut up." Issei closes his mouth. "You’re telling me that you’ve been writing letters for God knows how many fucking years rather than just actually saying what you were thinking? You’re telling me, that you decided it was a better idea to just write down everything you ever wanted to say and file it away in a box where no one would ever have to know about it until the day you die? Rather than actually talking?" Issei swallows as Hanamaki’s eyes widen slightly and his nose twitches. "You’re telling me, that you trusted some shitty paper with your thoughts and feelings more than you trusted us—me? Like, what did you think would happen? Did you think we'd stop talking? Did you think we’d call you lame and gross and ditch you? Cut you out? That’s _bullshit_ , Matsukawa!"

Hanamaki is so close that it makes it hard to tell, but Issei can see; he can smell the faint remnants of alcohol on his breath now, can hear the air hissing past his teeth as his eyes dart back and forth, but he can also see the anger slowly leeching out of Hanamaki’s face and giving way to hurt. Issei bites his bottom lip, and watches achingly as Hanamaki’s eyes flit down at the movement before they’re back on his own eyes.

"What were you gonna do? Huh? What were you going to do if I’d never found those letters? Were you seriously just gonna keep quiet for the rest of your life?" Loosening his hold on Issei only slightly, Hanamaki takes half a step back. They stare at each other silently. Issei wonders if this is what it feels like to drown.

Then Hanamaki lets out a shaking exhale and tilts his head forward to lean against Issei’s shoulder.

It’s physically painful, how much Issei wants to put his arms around him.

He gently squeezes Hanamaki’s wrists.

"…What are we, Matsukawa?"

Issei shuts his eyes. His chest _hurts_.

"You’re my best friend, Hiro," he rasps. "I—You’ll always be my best friend."

"And what if that’s not what I want anymore?"

Issei never realised just how many times a heart could break.

"Then…then I won’t stop you," he manages, desperately trying to sound like he isn’t coming apart at the seams.

Hanamaki’s weight shifts and he lifts his head away. Issei opens his eyes, expecting to see anger or hurt or disgust or just blank indifference. He’s not sure what would be worse.

What he doesn’t expect to see is the determined flash in Hanamaki’s eyes before he’s being pulled forward again and Hanamaki is pressing his lips against his.

By the time his brain has caught up, Hanamaki is already pulling away.

"What—"

"You’re a stupid, fucking bastard, Matsukawa," Hanamaki says again, quietly, as he drops his head back onto Issei’s shoulder. "You’re a bastard, and an idiot, and I am too." Issei feels his eyes widen as his mouth goes slack.

It takes him too long. It takes him too long, because he’s confused, because his stomach is twisting and his chest still feels tight, because he can’t quite figure out what’s going on, because all he can think is that Hanamaki just kissed him. Hanamaki just called him a bastard, told him he didn’t want to be friends anymore, and then kissed him? That’s what happened, right? Issei wasn’t actually going insane, right?

Holy shit, Hanamaki just kissed him.

"You—wait, so you’re not…mad?"

Hanamaki jerks his head up so suddenly it makes Issei jump.

"What the hell are you on? Of course I’m fucking mad!"

Issei stammers, "No—but, like—you just kissed me, and I’m—I’m kind of getting mixed signals—"

"I kissed you because I _like_ you, not because I’m not mad, fucking hell." He’s glaring again, but his words make Issei’s face warm. "How would you feel if you found out that your best friend had been writing you fucking love letters ever since you were in high school while you were out there trying to get over him? Huh? Like, why the fuck didn’t you ever say anything, Jesus Christ…"

"I-I couldn’t—"

"Bullshit you couldn’t! You just didn’t want to, because you were scared." Issei gulps as guilt coils in his stomach hotly, but he doesn’t say anything. Because he’s not wrong.

After another few seconds, Hanamaki’s shoulders relax as he drops his gaze to the floor and finally releases Issei, letting his hands fall to his side. Issei’s own hands itch with the sudden loss.

"You were scared, and I was too," Hanamaki says quietly.

What?

"I didn’t realise until I’d already left Miyagi, until I’d already committed to Tokyo," Hanamaki starts again. "I figured it was just homesickness or—or…I don’t know. But I thought it would go away, so I just ignored it. Plus, you were here, you had your family and the funeral home, and there was no way I was coming back just because of some dumb—crush or something.

"But then at some point…at some point I realised that you had set the bar so fucking high that no one would ever be anything but a shadow of you. And then I realised that’s all I was chasing, and I—" He shakes his head, shoulders bunching up under his ears.

"I tried to keep ignoring it; I put it in a box and pushed it to the back of my mind and just pretended it wasn’t there. For years. But then I just got so sick of everything; I got sick of work and life and trying every damn day and never being good enough while you and everyone else just had everything they wanted fall right into their lap like it was made for them. And this whole time, I feel like I’ve been wasting my life doing shit that I don’t really know if I even want to do it, except I still have to do it because— _life_. And it’s shit and I’m sick of it. I’m so, so fucking _sick_ of it all and I’m just…" He sucks in a huge breath that he blows out so hard Issei feels it through his shirt.

"And then I realised the other night." Hanamaki glances up and immediately looks away again, as if he could hear Issei’s heartbeat falter. "I realised, the other night at yours, that the only thing I know I want anymore is you. Even though I was pissed at you and you’ve got your own life and your family and a whole fucking business, all I could think is how much I’ve missed you and how much I just—wanted to stay with you. I got sick of pretending I didn’t want that—you—anymore." He lifts his hands and looks down at his palms, bottom lip jutting out. Then he clenches them into fists as his face crumples.

"But I couldn’t have that. No matter how much I wanted it. Because you’re my best friend and I couldn’t do that to you. Because I wasn’t willing to risk ruining your life and our whole relationship over some stupid feelings that I just couldn’t leave buried."

Hanamaki’s eyes cut up to Issei’s, anger flickering in them, albeit weakly. "So when I found those letters and I realised you’d been doing the same fucking thing? I got so mad. Like, fucking hell, Matsukawa. I literally thought I was hallucinating or something. I was so mad, I had to leave—and not just because I didn’t know how to face you, but because it was just one more thing that felt like a gross waste of time spent stumbling about in the dark."

Hanamaki falls quiet and looks away again, apparently exhausted, but Issei’s chest squeezes his hammering heart so hard he thinks he might pass out. He waits for his pulse to settle a little bit as he processes everything before he speaks again.

"So…you like me?"

Hanamaki glances up at him before nodding with a small grimace. "Yeah, guess you could say that. Unfortunately. And not for an insignificant amount of time, either. So yeah. Guess we’re just as bad as each other." He shrugs weakly. "Sorry. This all would have been a lot less agonising if I didn’t give two shits about you, but I do. So. Here we are."

Issei breathes out a faint chuckle and tries and struggles to think of anything beyond _Hanamaki likes me shit am I actually going insane because Hanamaki is still here and he kissed me and he’s not walking out and holy_ shit _Hanamaki likes me._

It’s absurd. It’s surreal. He wants to keel over into Hanamaki’s arms immediately. Of all the outcomes Issei had imagined in the event that he should ever confess to Hanamaki, both on the drive down and over the years, none of them could compare to how insanely absurd the reality was. It almost felt like a fever dream. Or maybe he had crashed his car and was now on life support—maybe _he_ was somewhere in Tochigi, lying in a coma in some hospital after driving off a cliff or something, imagining this whole scene.

He bites his tongue and pain blooms in his mouth. _No, this is real._

And then he remembers the slip of paper in his pocket and feels a different pain.

He feels regret.

Issei couldn’t fault Hanamaki for keeping his feelings hidden, but in that moment he felt the weight of the years that they had lost. And paired with the guilt of having lied and the knowledge that Hanamaki had been lying the whole time too—it was unbearable. The years spent alone, agonising over what could and couldn’t be; the years that could have instead been spent _with_ Hanamaki. It was excruciatingly heavy and he wished for nothing more than to be able to change the past. For both of them.

And he can see the same guilt and regret spreading through Hanamaki’s entire being now, sucking the energy out of him. And under that, he can see the betrayal still burning next to his anger.

Because of course. Hanamaki already felt betrayed and let down by everything else in life, and then Issei went and betrayed him too.

Issei swallows. He couldn’t make life fair for Hanamaki, but he could at least fix the obscene train wreck they had caused between themselves. He could at least make up for the time they had lost.

"Hanamaki," Issei starts, taking a step back. "Hiro." He braces his hands on Hanamaki’s shoulders and waits for him to lift his eyes. "I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about the writing or how I felt. I’m sorry I hurt you. But I won’t do that anymore; I won’t keep secrets from you and I won’t keep the letters that I write for you. You—I’ll give you everything, and I promise you that. With everything I have. I swear."

He licks his lips and takes a deep breath.

"So come back with me—to Miyagi."

Hanamaki’s eyes flit back and forth as a complicated look clouds his face and wrinkles the space between his eyebrows. Issei waits, his breath shallow and his heart racing.

Then Hanamaki’s eyes fall to the ground again.

Issei can feel the anxiety swirling in his belly, but if Hanamaki hasn’t walked out yet, Issei is pretty sure he’s not going to flat out reject him. Probably.

But as Hanamaki stays silent, he feels the doubt loom over him suffocatingly.

"I mean, you don’t _have_ to…"

Hanamaki glances up at him at that, one eyebrow raised. He sounds almost scathing as he say, "I’m sorry, was that meant to be a question or not?"

Issei grimaces. "Well, you weren’t saying anything!"

"What was I supposed to say?"

"An answer that makes you happy."

"And what if I’m happy never leaving Tokyo again?"

Issei hesitates at Hanamaki’s perfect pokerface, unsure in that instant if he’s being serious or playing devil’s advocate. "If that’s…"

He can already feel his heart aching.

"I won’t force you," he says quietly, letting his hands slide down Hanamaki’s arms, "and I’m not saying to move and leave Tokyo forever, but…just come stay with me again. At least while you’re still deciding what to do. I know it’s selfish, but I want to be with you. Even if it doesn’t work out, I want to try." He slips his hands around Hanamaki’s and pushes away the embarrassing shyness that blooms in his chest. "Please?"

The corner of Hanamaki’s mouth twitches and he squeezes Issei’s fingers gently. "Gay," he says.

Feeling a little more confident, Issei lifts Hanamaki’s hands and gently presses his lips against his knuckles, pinning Hanamaki with his gaze. "Mhmm."

Hanamaki’s _blushes_. "Super gay," he mumbles, his eyebrows knitting together, and Issei can’t help the flutter in his belly and the grin that tugs at his mouth.

"So?" he asks, placing the lightest of kisses on each of Hanamaki’s knuckles in turn. "Will you?"

Hanamaki considers him for what feels like a lifetime.

"Matsukawa, do you like me?"

"Um," Issei laughs hesitantly as he straightens up. "What have we just been talking about again?"

"Don’t sass me, you fucker." His eyes narrow. "I’m serious. I need to hear you say it."

Issei nods and pulls Hanamaki’s hands against his chest. "Yeah, I do, Hiro. I like you. I like you a lot. I always have. And you…" He inhales shakily. "You don’t have to try with me, you know. You’ve always been good enough for me. You’re _it_ for me."

Issei doesn’t think he’s ever seen Hanamaki look this flustered before, and he thinks he might love it.

"Unbelievably fucking gay." Hanamaki’s mouth twists as he takes a deep breath in, leaning away slightly. "I’m still gonna have to earn money, though."

"You can get a part time job."

"And what if it’s shitty?"

"Then get a less shitty part time job."

"What if they’re all shitty?"

"Then keep looking until you find something that _isn’t_ shitty. And until you do," he carries on quickly, cutting off Hanamaki before he can rebut him again, "I’ll be there to listen to you whine every day. With cream puffs."

"Ugh, so I have to go to my shitty job and then come home to you? Woe is me."

Issei purses his lips. "You could even come work at the funeral home."

Hanamaki snorts. "And spend even more time with you? No thanks."

He’s got an easy smirk tilting up one side of his face now, but something in Hanamaki’s eyes tugs at Issei’s heart. "If you really don’t want to leave Tokyo you don’t have to, you know," he says quietly. "And even if you come back to Miyagi, you can change your mind whenever you want."

Expression falling, Hanamaki sighs and pulls his hands away, turning and going back to the table. He stares down at the beer cans without sitting. "It’s not that. To be honest, I’m still not sure what I even want to do about that, but like…I mean, if I go back now, my parents are gonna give me so much shit about it, for one."

"You know they’d be stoked to have you back home."

"Yeah, stoked to remind me what a disappointment I am."

Issei runs his eyes over the downward slope of Hanamaki’s shoulders. "You know, not knowing what you want to do doesn’t make you a disappointment."

Another snort. "You can say that because you literally own your own business."

"Yeah, but I also just lost nearly 10 years that I could have had with you because I was—too scared to take a chance." He shrugs one shoulder when Hanamaki turns to look at him. "So."

Hanamaki chews on the inside of his lip, fingers fidgeting absentmindedly. He looks down at the table, back to Issei, then at the floor.

Issei waits, trying not to hope too hard.

"Why now?" Hanamaki asks without warning, side-eyeing him.

"Huh?"

"What happened for you to decide to drive down here and say all this now?"

Issei bites his lip. "I was writing another letter—which you can have!" he rushes to add when Hanamaki's eyes twitch. "It’s literally still sitting in the middle of my bed, you can have it. But I wrote that and then I found your letter, and…" He shakes his head. "I couldn’t not come. I had to talk to you."

"You could have waited until morning. You didn’t have to turn up in the middle of the night."

Issei shakes his head again. "I wasn’t thinking that much. I saw your letter and I just got in the car and started driving. I didn’t even know what I was going to say, I just…I knew I had to talk to you. Now. I couldn’t waste anymore time."

Head tilted, Hanamaki just watches Issei silently from across the room. He sucks on his cheek, working his jaw, and lets his gaze slowly drop back to the floor near Issei’s feet.

When Hanamaki lifts his head again, it’s like the clouds have finally cleared.

"Sure."

Issei blinks at him. "Sure?"

Hanamaki nods, looking like he’s trying not to smile. "Sure. Fuck it, let’s do this."

It’s dizzying, the force with which Issei feels his chest fill with unbridled joy.

Grinning so wide his face instantly hurts, Issei takes a huge step towards Hanamaki and reaches for him. In the same moment that he wraps one hand around Hanamaki’s wrist and pulls him forwards, Hanamaki turns and steps into him and they crash together, Issei’s breath leaving him in a rush. He laughs and wraps both arms around Hanamaki’s back, fingers splayed over his ribs as he buries his face in Hanamaki’s neck and Hanamaki’s own arms come up to wrap around his neck.

"Holy shit, are you sure?" he says, lifting his head to look at Hanamaki’s face.

Hanamaki is grinning now, blindingly. Issei could stare at him forever.

"Yeah. I told you: I may not know what the hell I’m doing but I know I wanna be with you. Depressingly sappy as that may sound. Plus, your couch is comfier than my bed."

Issei snorts. "Don’t be an idiot, you’re not sleeping on the couch anymore."

Hanamaki pulls away further, his fingers gripping the back of Issei’s neck like tiny little spots of heat as he puts far too much space between them. "Whoa, what? You can’t ask me to come back to your place and then expect me to just roll straight into bed with you. You have to seduce me if you want me to sleep with you. Actually—you know what, you should be _courting_ me, you heathen. Just because I’ve seen you all sweaty and gross in your natural habitat for years doesn’t mean you can just woo me—"

"Hiro."

"—and expect me to go along with all your whims. I mean, first, you’re gonna have to put your amateur Soseki-arse in gear and actually write me a proper poem, then you’re gonna have to win me over with a combination of food and cream puffs, and also I expect to get a full test run of the goods before I commit to buying, plus—"

"Hanamaki, shut up."

"—I need you to fend off my family while I relax in the comfort of your air-conditioned—oh, and I absolutely refuse to ever get into your car when it’s more than 25 degrees outside again, you’re gonna have to—"

" _Takahiro_."

Hanamaki finally stops in his tirade then.

"Can I kiss you?"

Issei loves the way his lips pinch together in embarrassment, the way his cheeks colour again just slightly. He pulls Hanamaki closer, and he loves the way he lets him. He feels Hanamaki’s fingers thread up through his hair, and as he leans closer, their bodies flush and breaths mingling, he thinks how much he loves that he can do this.

He thinks how much he loves Hanamaki.

"Hiro?"

Hanamaki grins. Nudges his nose.

"You don’t have to ask that."

* * *

[Epilogue]

_Ping._

"Holy shit."

Issei stops writing and glances up from his notebook to see Takahiro walking into the living room brandishing his phone and a couple of envelopes.

"Have you seen this!"

Takahiro shoves his phone in front of Issei’s face without waiting for an answer. On the screen is a Line chat, and at the bottom is a picture of a beaming Oikawa with his arm hooked around a grimacing Iwaizumi.

"Is that…?"

"From Oikawa."

Issei purses his lips. "Is that our old group chat?"

Takahiro frowns and takes his phone back for the shortest second. "Yeah, but that’s not—look at the picture! Iwaizumi is in Argentina! _Argentina!_ " He shakes his phone at Issei violently.

Issei bites back his smile. "He did say he was taking some time off this month."

Takahiro groans and throws himself down onto the other end of the couch. Issei quickly lifts his notebook out of the way as Takahiro swings his legs into his lap. "Clearly, Tokyo Japan just isn’t the cool place to be anymore."

Placing his pen between the pages of his notebook and sliding it onto the table, Issei shifts to face Takahiro. He leans his head on one hand and lets the other rest on Takahiro’s shins. "He’ll be back, you know."

Takahiro raises a single eyebrow at him. "Bet."

Issei grins. "Bet I’d lose that bet."

"Exactly." Takahiro pulls himself up with a groan. "Well, the golden duo stole my thunder so screw them, but look at this." He slaps one of the envelopes on top of Issei’s hands.

"What is…" He pulls the sheet out from the mangled envelope and scans his eyes over the contents.

_Hanamaki Takahiro-sama—_

"Remember that apprenticeship I applied for?"

_—we received your application safely—_

"The one in Sendai?"

_—would like to invite you to start next month—_

"Holy _shit,_ Hiro!"

Issei looks up to meet Takahiro’s easy grin as he throws up a peace sign.

"So you’re gonna take it?" He tries not to sound too much like an overzealous teenager.

"Yep," Takahiro nods, taking the letter back. "Guess it’s a good thing Iwaizumi’s decided to elope now; him and Kuroo would never get on without me."

Issei frowns as he watches Takahiro stuff the letter back into its envelope. "Wait," he starts, putting a hand on Takahiro’s. "So you’re not going back to Tokyo? Like for good?"

Takahiro stares at him impassively. "Sorry that my cooking is clearly so burdensome."

"No, that's not—what if—"

Takahiro throws the envelope onto the table with his phone and grabs Issei’s face. "Stop your negative worst case scenarios. So _what_ if we jump off the wrong cliff a few times? If it goes tits up, we’ll deal with it. But until then, I shall be requesting full-time access to your titan sweats."

Issei relaxes into his hands and grins freely. "Okay. Yeah. Whatever you want, Hiro. Although it’s not as if you don’t already have full-time access to _everything_." He leans forward to give Takahiro a quick peck. "And I love it when you cook."

Takahiro grimaces and pushes him back. "Gross. Get off me, sap."

Issei laughs.

"And now, last surprise: look at _this_."

He holds up the second envelope between two fingers. It’s worn and faded, Takahiro’s name scrawled across the front in Issei’s old handwriting. Something stirs in his belly at the mischievous glint in Takahiro’s eyes.

Issei gulps, "That one of mine?"

"One of _mine_ , excuse you," Takahiro scoffs. He leans back against the arm of the couch and wiggles his feet in Issei’s lap in request of Issei tracing gentle swirls over the smooth skin of his ankles. "Anyway, I was going through all my love letters the other day—"

"Please spare me some dignity."

"—when I came across this gem." Issei watches Takahiro flip open the envelope and pull the single sheet of unlined paper out with a flourish. "What’s so special about this one you ask? Well," he lilts, tongue curling against the roof of his mouth, "this one has a _date_."

Issei frowns.

"So I did some detective work and figured out that you wrote this one on a Thursday afternoon back in June of second year. Not only that, but after some careful deliberation, I figured that this was probably one of your first letters." Their eyes meet and Issei feels his stomach drop away.

He lunges forwards to grab the letter, but Takahiro is faster.

"Wait, Hiro, don’t!"

Takahiro laughs, his foot pressed firmly against Issei’s chest and the letter held back and out of reach. "So I’m right? I knew it!" Issei strains around him, but Takahiro just leans further away. "I’ve already read it, you know."

"Then why do you want to read it _again_?"

"Because I thought you’d like to hear it."

"Absolutely not." And if he’d known that all the words he’d ever written would one day be cruelly brought out and read back to him for his lover’s entertainment…well, he probably still would have written them.

Issei pulls up a knee and tries to lean over Takahiro. He hooks his fingers in his sleeve and pulls feebly as Takahiro starts to read.

"' _Dear Hanamaki Takahiro-san…'_ God, I still can’t get over the fact you wrote me a formal confession letter. Second year Matsukawa was a neeerd."

"Hiro, I will revoke your moving in rights."

Takahiro snorts as he pushes Issei away with his feet. "Bit late for that, mate." He tilts his head back to continue reading in a voice that wouldn’t go amiss in a period drama. "' _I am writing this letter as a confession of my feelings for you_ —'"

"Hiro—" Issei doesn’t understand how someone that barely moves can have such nimble and dextrous feet. "Did you sign a deal with the devil, why does it feel like you have a million feet?"

Takahiro cackles as Issei manages to fist a hand in the front of his shirt and leverage himself within reach of Takahiro’s arm, but he can’t get a good angle and Takahiro just extends his body out of the way.

"' _The very first day I saw you with your fearlessly pink hair that perfectly matched the cherry blossoms, I knew I would surely never love another_ —'"

"Takahiro, I swear to _God_ —'" Since when did he get so strong?

"' _I did not think I believed in love at first sight, but you have proven me wrong_ —'"

With a growl, Issei kicks forward and Takahiro’s knees finally buckle under his weight. They shout and scramble as Issei tries to gain his bearings and reach for the letter again. Takahiro holds him back with a single, impossibly stable arm and arches his back to keep the letter away, reading faster and louder.

"' _I know this may be strange coming from another man, and you do not have to give me an answer right now or ever_ —'"

Issei scrabbles for purchase on his arm.

"' _I am deeply, profoundly,_ passionately _in_ —'"

A burst of inspiration hits him. With Takahiro’s legs now wrapped around him, Issei lets go and sits back on his haunches before digging his fingers between Takahiro’s ribs. Takahiro shouts and curls up instantly, uncontrollable laughter falling from his lips.

"No, stop, stop— _stop_ , please—fuck— _Issei—_!"

Issei snatches the letter from Takahiro’s hand and throws it over the back of the couch. Takahiro cries out, immediately going to sit up, but Issei grabs his face and crushes their mouths together with a gasp. Takahiro makes a surprised sound, his fingers digging into Issei’s shoulders, his heels into the backs of Issei’s thighs. Issei groans and pushes him down into the couch.

He instantly loses himself in the taste of Takahiro’s mouth, the feel of Takahiro’s arms wrapping around his body, the smell of Takahiro’s soft skin under his hands, and when Takahiro moans, he moans too, and he tries to pull Takahiro even closer because it’s just _not enough_. It’s never enough.

Even now, after months of being together, being with Takahiro still makes his head swim and his heart feel a little bit like it’s going to burst from his chest, but he also wishes it would never stop.

Issei breaks away only when he thinks he may pass out, his lungs struggling to coordinate with the punishing pace set by his heart. He pants into Takahiro’s mouth, trying to get his breathing under control.

"'Love at first sight,' huh?"

Issei sits back to look at Takahiro’s face, at the smug grin stretching over his kiss-swollen lips. "Shit," he says—is all he can think to say. "You’re so—"

_Blinding. Gorgeous. Maddening._

He swallows, chest heaving. "I love you."

_I could write every single word under the sun and it would never be enough to describe you._

"Yeah. I love you too."

Issei leans over to kiss him again as Takahiro’s arms come up to pull him back down.

✑ 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aaaaaaand CUT. DONE. FINIT. THE END.  
> Thank you so much for reading this all the way through. It means the world to me. I hope you enjoyed reading this story as much as I enjoyed writing it.
> 
> Shoutout to all my friends (irl and online) that have had to put up with me screaming about this fic for months. Shoutout to all my friends that have watched me go through several meltdowns a day while ping ponging between crying over Matsuhana and crying over Iwaoi and crying over Matsukawa and then back to Matsuhana. Shoutout to my neighbours and the secret agents that had to listen to me sing the 1 about seven thousand times a day.
> 
> I can’t tell you how much fun I had writing this. It was an incredibly long process that both gave me strength and drained me at times, but I’m so glad I did it. I learned a lot and am so excited to write more stories for these two.
> 
> Feel free to come and scream/cry at me over on [tumblr](https://unicornjellybee.tumblr.com) and [twitter](https://twitter.com/unicornjellybee)! Disclaimer: when I’m not crying about life or fictional volleyboys, I’m just spamming art.
> 
> And to anyone struggling with what to do in their future: there is time. It's okay if you take the long way round. Look for the light and follow it.
> 
> Thank you again<3


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